The Messed Up Life of a BandOrch Kid
by MusicallyInsane
Summary: Fia has been part of the orch her entire life where everything band is bad. What happens when she falls in love with it and finds love in return? chapter 10 up finally!
1. The Sound of Horns

Author's Note: I decided to take my story Wasted Time and expand it into a multi-chapter version. I wrote it out to see how it would flow in the one shot and now that I like the idea of the story I will add in all of the extra details. It will go into more depth then the short story I wrote with some twists and a different ending. I really didn't like the way I wrote this version the first time so I decided to try the story in a first person tone. The old version didn't seem to get as much response so let's try it this way. I think that the character of Sofia Lane is much stronger than it used to be now that we actually get a look into her head. Well you're welcome to come along for the ride... BTW any insults made towards the band in this are just for the story. Please don't take any of it personally. Besides if the insults were true then I would be insulting myself now wouldn't I?

Also for those of you that have been reading this story from before I made the change in POV's please drop a review telling me which way you like the story better.

DISCLAIMER: Here is my disclaimer for the rest of the story... I do not own any of the bands, movies, appliances, etc. that are used in here unless otherwise specified. All of the characters in this story are fictional, made by myself, and if they have the same name as you or someone you know it is entirely coincidence and making no reference to you or that person.

* * *

From the point of view of an "orch dork" in freshmen year, the band was made up of a bunch of losers. None of them had brains and they weren't worth our attention. Their instruments were nothing in comparison to the delicate wooden instruments we played. They were everything that was considered to be coarse or unrefined… at least that was what we were told to believe. 

Rude comments were often heard being thrown at us and we would often times be heard throwing cruel, hurtful words back at them. That was how our orchestra and band got along… one stupid comment after another being tossed back and forth between the two groups.

They were just another bunch of airheads and we were just another bunch of snobs. The music we could have shared was _wasted_.

I loved my music but, it always seems that something had gone to waste and that something was missing.

This is where my story begins.

* * *

I stood outside the music room with my cello, waiting for a call from my ride. Our school's band and orchestra director, Mr Larsson, had called a last minute chamber orchestra practice causing me to miss my only convenient ride home. It went by smoothly, I guess, and as usual he let us out right before the band came for marching band practice. Everyone always guessed he did this just so he could attempt to get some kind of interaction between our two classes. It never worked. 

I watched as the rest of my classmates and friends hurried off to their cars. None of them really felt like hanging around to socialise with the rest of the band.

"Hey Fia!" I turned around to see my best friend, Alice waving, at me, "Do you need a ride home?"

"Nah, Eric's going to pick me up. Besides you live on the other side of town" I told her, Eric was my older cousin.

"It doesn't really matter to me but, okay. See ya tomorrow." Alice started heading towards the upper classmen's parking lot. She unlike myself had somehow found the courage to get her driver's license. Then again she's a junior and I'm only a sophomore.

"Sure."

Waiting outside the music room wasn't too bad. I just really did not want to have a run in with one of the bandies. Ever since... well nobody knew exactly when but, for the longest time we had been fighting.

The front pocket of my pants began to vibrate causing me to jump. My friends always tease me because I jump at the stupidest things. Even when we watched the Ring I expected it to be so-oo scary and then I never jumped at the actual 'scary' parts. Instead I jumped at the parts where nothing happened.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell and flipped it open. Eric had texted me from his work.

>>I'm almost here

I had talked to Eric earlier when Larsson held us after for practice, so he would know I would need a ride. We had both agreed to meet in the teachers parking lot... which was inconveniently behind the football field

Grabbing up all my stuff I made my way down, taking the opposite direction that Alice took. And right on time too, it sounded like a whole group of bandies were right about to come around the corner. I had never really bothered taking this way before... but, then again I had never asked for a ride from Eric either. I think the only time I had ever actually been to the football field at all was the first home game of the year when I was a freshmen. Nobody really bothered with that game and we lost anyway so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Passing all of the empty classrooms at night was beyond eerie. I hopped over the fence behind my trig teachers classroom and tumbled down the hill that lead to the field having to go back to retrieve my cello. That wasn't exactly the easiest feat trying to get the thirty pound case over the fence. As carefully as I could I darted behind the bleachers before anyone could see me. This was the bando's claimed territory and I wanted to avoid any trouble.

I ran through the shadows letting the stadium lights that made it through the cracks hit me. I was about five feet from the end of the bleachers, where I could make a break for my cousin's truck, when the last possible thing that could happen, happened. A very powerful noise... no not noise... _sound_ reached my ears making me stop. I stood awkwardly in the darkness of the bleachers trying to catch my breath. I set my cello down carefully in the mud and walked over to a peephole in the stands, by where the bands water coolers were stacked. It was a perfect view of their practice.

It was surprising what they were doing. A hundred people stood on the field in perfect attention, all wearing their uniforms with the school's colors of red and gold, waiting for some sort of command. I watched as one of them mounted a high podium and saluted the nonexistent audience and then turned to his band. He signaled instruments up and they all snapped up as one, waiting for his command. With the fall of his arms the production began, every person weaving their way to where they were supposed to be. From what I saw, there seemed to be so much emotion behind it. Every single person looked like they were wrapped up in what they were doing, as if they individually were the most important thing on the field. They played their parts, which began to fade, letting a single soloist rise above the rest of them. The music was haunting. It said so much more than_ I_ had ever been able to express on my cello. That said a lot too, seeing as I have been first chair for the last seven years and have been first chair in the local youth symphonies since I was old enough to audition. It captured my mind completely and when the boys solo started to join the rest of the band I noticed no flaw in his being able to blend in with everyone again. It was perfect. Never in all of my life had I heard something so uniquely different that actually seemed to speak to me.

I was stunned out of my enchantment, however, when the Drum Major abruptly stopped the performance.

"That was good people but, let's make it better." The Drum Major's voice carried across the whole field, even reaching... what were they called? The horn thingies? Whatever. "Take no more than a five minute water break and then get back to your positions. Where going to use the Dr. Beat" There were a few groans from some of them but, they all got over it.

I watched them break their formations. Laughing and talking started as they met up with their friends and discussed their last attempt. Some of them were still pressing down on the different valves going over their parts. It was a perfect picture and something about it made me happy. I froze, however, when I realised what their Drum Major had just said.

_"Take no more than a five minute water break!!!"_

I looked down at what I was leaning against.

_Oh shit! _

I ran to my cello and grabbed it rushing up the small slope leading to the parking lot, leaving the water coolers far behind. I was just on time too. Right as I got out of their sight they all broke around the corner.

I only slowed down once I saw that they couldn't see me anymore no matter how hard they looked. I scanned the parking lot looking for Eric's green pick-up truck. He saw me and waved through the window, honking the horn a little. I ran the rest of the way and jumped into the cab, throwing my cello and book bag in the back seat. I sat there silently thinking traitor over and over again. Eric watched this mental battle, that evidently showed on my face, with amusement. His trademark smile, which he claimed got him the girls, grew on his face.

"You okay?" He asked. That definetely grabbed my attention.

"Fine." I said, putting on my best fake smile, which he totally didn't buy. The cool thing about my cousin though is that he never pries.

"You don't sound so sure." Okay so maybe he does sometimes. But not often.

"It was fine just the usual... practice, practice, practice." I paused for a moment. "So how was work?"

I looked over at my cousin. He didn't exactly look to good but, then again these days he never looked well. He had lived with us for the last six years after his parents died. As soon as he was old enough he got a job to help add to the little income my mom got from the grocer's she worked at. His dark brown hair was ruffled up and he had bags under his usually very bright green eyes.

"Work was hard today, especially with the heat waves. We got like a billion calls for all the electrical shorts people are having in their houses. You have to hate weather sometimes." He told her. Eric was an electrician.

"Aww… that sucks." I sympathized. When it came to things electrical I was illiterate but, I tried my best to understand for his sake.

My reply set a very awkward silence through the car. It just gave me more time to think.

* * *

That night after mom cooked dinner I lay in my bed thinking about the days events. It may have only been a brief moment but, the tune the one boy played on that horn stuck in my mind. It was like having Twinkle Twinkle Little Star stuck in my head but, way less annoying. I wanted to hear more of it, I wanted to be able to see everything clearly again. I already knew that I couldn't though. Death by orchestra bow is not really the highest priority on my list. I didn't really need to imagine the reaction everyone would have if they found out I had fallen for something as forbidden as the Marching Band. 

_I can't let this bother me forever. The right thing to do is to pretend like I never heard it and go back to orchestra tomorrow like nothing ever happened._

That night my dreams were filled with bone chilling recollections of the solo that had captured me and the things my classmates would certainly do to me.

* * *

"Okay classe... settle down" Mr L cried above the noise. It was the very end of class and everyone was wound up over the anticipation of the bell. "Now I know you don't want to have anything to do with the rest of the band but, I'm letting you know early this year that our holiday concert..." 

The rest of his sentence wasn't even finished before the orchestra had begun to protest what they new he was going to say.

"Come on Larsson, you remember last year." Mike, one of the seniors all of the girls in the class crushed on, said. Of course everything went silent for him.

"Yeah!" Came in a chorus of agreements. They were remembering the fight that had broken out right before the concert started. It left a few of our own with bloody noses and torn uniforms. Two girls were sent to the hospital for concussions; one being jammed in the face with the scroll of a bass and the other having a trombone slide knocked against the back of her head. It was not a very happy night and trust me... we all paid for it dearly the next day.

"Now look here, I know you're not terribly excited about combining the two groups and neither is the band but, really this is music." Larsson said. I'm sure all of the memories were flooding back to him with a great force.

"Pfft." The class idiot, Christine, let out over the dull murmur that had come across the room. She may have been an idiot but, you had to admit that when it came to her playing she was the best violinist we had. "As if you could really call that crap music."

"Now come on Chris." He retaliated, looking at the rest of the class, "That is entirely unfair." He then whispered under his breath, so it was barely audible to the rest of us, "and exactly what the band said too."

I had, had enough, "I don't think it's that bad of an idea." My voice may not have been very loud but it jolted a lot of my friends out of their argument with Mr Larsson. They all turned to me, giving me a look that challenged me to say it again. Now what was it I said about them skewering me with their bows?

"See." Mr Larsson said, pointing at me, glad for some enthusiasm. "She agrees."

"As if Fia actually means that." Alice said, holding her violin a bit more tightly then she should have. Yeah, I really did mean it but, to tell you the truth I don't exactly have a death wish. "Right Fia?"

I was silent. Mr Larsson, seeing that he was loosing my support quickly, spoke up. "Well it doesn't really matter what the rest of you think anyway. It's already decided we're doing the concert." He picked up a gigantic folder from his desk and started flipping through it. He passed me the cello parts and then passed the rest out for the holiday concert. "And if I hear about one fight coming from anyone of you or the band whoever is responsible is thrown out of the music programme for the year. I don't care what nut brained excuses you have."

There were a bunch of moans from my classmates which were drowned out by the bell.

"Class dismissed." Mr Larsson cried. It didn't really matter though; we were already out of our seats before we could be excused.

I put cello away and followed Alice into the locker room where she stored her instrument.

"Hey." I said leaning against the lockers casually, hidden from view of Alice by the locker door. She slammed it shut, making a loud noise from the metal hitting metal.

"Did you actually mean what you said in there?" Alice asked, with her hands on her hips.

"Well..." I meant to tell her the truth but, seeing Alice's look of horror when I started, made me decide to do the smart thing and not tell her, "Of course not. What, do you honestly think I would stand up for that bunch of losers?" I gave Alice a fake reassuring smile. It was apparently good enough for Alice however because she smiled back.

"Good I thought I had lost you there to the deep dark abyss known as the bando's brains." She laughed at her own joke. I chuckled a bit uncomfortably, remembering one of our excuses why we hated the bandies.

A voice I didn't recognise but, a face I did entered our conversation, "Something funny about the size of our brains, Melling?" Cheryl, a clarinetist in the marching band asked gruffly, addressing Alice. She had bright blonde hair that was inching toward white and the clearest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her skin was near transparent. She may have looked ill or weak but, she had the muscles to prove she wasn't... trust me, I've tested them.

"Nothing really... just the fact that there seems to be no size their at all." Alice said, stupidly. I kicked her shin.

"Alice." I said, using the same tone of voice my mom had used when I misbehaved in public when I was younger, "Don't."

"Your friend here is right." Cheryl said, sizing me up, "Don't joke about what you don't have." She pushed Alice a bit against the wall, Alice glaring at her back, and with that she was out of the room slamming the door behind her.

"Can you believe that, Fia?" Alice asked me incredulously, "The nerve of some people."

"Actually she kind of had a point." I said, leaving the room behind before Alice could understand what I had said and before I could understand what I had said.

I grabbed my cello and dragged it to the one place that seemed to be calling to me... the field.

_Actually she kind of has a point?!_ I screeched at myself. _What the hell was I thinking?! She's never going to forgive me._

I made my way under the bleachers finding a place where nobody would be able to see me and where I could get comfortable and still be able to scream mentally to myself.

_Is it weird to talk to myself like this? Hmmm... maybe I have some kind of mental disorder._

I kept on thinking to myself as I watched the band warm-up. I was barely paying attention to anything around myself when I felt a very strong grip on my shoulder. Startled, as I always am, I jumped and turned around fast to look at who had dared to think they could touch me.

"You do know that practices are closed, right?"

* * *

AN: Thanks for reading. _Again _I promise you that this is not a story criticising the band at all. Everything in here is just for the purpose of the story. So please don't come after me brandishing your spit valves. Just thought I would tell you that, meaning _no, _band instruments are not stupid and _no, _band people are not brainless. Well tell me what you think about the change. Do you like it better or no. I'm happy with it this way so this is how it is going to stay. I'll try to upload the other redone chapters soon too. Now see the little button in the bottom left corner? Press it and leave a review. Thanks for reading : ) I hope you enjoyed. 


	2. The Sound of Mystery

AN: Yay!!! chaptre two. In case you're wondering (which you're probably not) I have been extremely bored. I have band practice every day but, what to do after you get home besides go to sleep and get ready for another early morning. Well anyway enjoy chapter two.

* * *

"You do know that practices are closed, right?" 

I jumped about a foot in the air, banging my head on the top of the bleachers. I turned around, rubbing my head. I had a feeling I knew who it was.

"How did you know I was here, Mr Larsson?" I asked, finding my assumption to be correct.

"It's kind of obvious when I'm walking behind you and I _see_ you go under the bleachers." He told me. Doi. Of course he would see me. I looked at him hating him more than I ever have. He was in his early twenties with short reddish hair. He always seemed to have a passive attitude to students that broke rules but, for once he seemed kind of interested in why I was actually here. Not that I would give him the satisfaction of knowing that his scheme to have us interact with the bandos more had worked.

"Well then I guess you won't be seeing me under here again." I said, turning to leave. He grabbed my arm with his vice like grip again. Okay now I was getting mad.

"Now hold it." He said, a look that I didn't like entered his eyes. He was catching on to me, "What exactly is your reason for being down here?"

"Do I have to have a reason?" I asked, staring back at him, a bit impatient that he wouldn't let me just go.

"Not exactly... I just find it a little weird that an orch dork like you would even dare to stand up for them during class and then decide to come down to the field to... would spy be the right word?" He asked.

"I wouldn't say spy." I said, chuckling nervously. After his whole speech about getting kicked out of the music department, I really hoped that this wasn't something he would kick me out of the orchestra for. Not that he really could. Or could he?

"Then what exactly do you gain from being down here?" He stopped and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started to text message someone. An extremely annoying habit that he had started somewhere between the summer of my freshmen and sophomore year. Probably a bando texting him to see why he wasn't at practice.

I just gave him an irritated look and said, "Just don't tell anyone I was down here." With that I left. I really didn't want to answer and didn't even think I knew the answer either. I walked up the hill bumping into a few of the band kids who were carrying their instruments to practice. They saw Mr Larsson and they all gave him questioning looks that I completely ignored. Not likes it's any of their business anyway. He just shrugged back at them.

"Get to practice." I heard him snap at them. That made me smile. They all rushed past him onto the field.

* * *

The next day I walked into the music room after lunch to find a rather unpleasant surprise. A group of my classmates were gathered around the board discussing among one another in hushed voices. 

"Hey guys. Watsup?" I said, walking up to them. All of their eyes turned on me guiltily. Everyone remained silent. "What's the matter? Do I have something around my mouth?" I asked them, knowing that the problem probably had nothing to do with my mouth.

"Umm, Fia." Alice's voice finally spoke from the crowd. "There might be something you want to see." She motioned towards the board and everyone cleared a path for me.

I walked up to get a closer look at the thing they had moments before been crowded around. The instant I saw it I thought one of my blood vessels would explode. My face must have gone about twenty shades darker. Some ass had taken a picture of Mr Larsson and me under the bleachers from the night before with his hand on my arm. It looked like he was about to kiss me. The words, "Student/Teacher relationship... or is it more?" lined the bottom of the picture. I snatched the paper from the thumbtack that was holding it up and stormed to Mr Larsson's office. Everyone followed me out into the foyer so they could see part of the show I was about to put on. I slammed the door behind me to announce my presence to Larsson. In the privacy aspect it was kind of pointless seeing as there was a huge window in the door. It was just so incredibly satisfying to hear the sound of wood hitting wood. It felt rebellious. I approached his desk.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?" I screamed. He didn't even flinch, he just kept his gaze on the computer in front of him. If he'd learned anything about being a high school teacher that was that teenagers often times were loud... _very _loud.

"What seems to be the matter Miss Lane?" He asked, slowly turning around in his swivel chair to face me. I responded by slapping the photo onto his desk. He took one look at the picture and the words and his eyebrows shot up. Score one for me. Finally some reaction out of this monk of a man.

"What do you _think_ my problem is?"

"Do you honestly think that I did this? Come on Fia. I'm more professional than to go jeopardising my career." He said, keeping a cool face the whole while. To tell you the truth I doubted he did that and then posted it but, for the sake of rebellion!

"What are you going to do about this then?" I asked, trying to keep some sort of argument going.

"Nothing. Obviously it's a joke and not that many people saw it in the first place so what's the point of spreading a rumour." He told me. Point for him.

I looked over my shoulder at the door where the whole orchestra was standing. I then lowered my voice to a whisper to state one thing that I actually wanted to keep somewhat secret, "Well if anyone asks you what I was doing down there just tell them... umm... tell them I was trying to get you to change your mind on having the concerts together."

"Wow, did I just hear our Sofia Lane tell me to make an outright lie?" He asked, faking a startled voice.

"Oh shut up. I don't need their questions as to why I was down there piled on top of yours." I told him. The simple truth wouldn't be so simple to tell.

"So what _were_ you doing down there?" He asked, leaning back in his chair clasping his hands as if he were making himself comfortable for a long story around the fire. I just gave him a look. "Well come on, it can't be that secret."

"Just don't tell anyone about why I was down there." I said, waving my hands above my head, showing him that I was clearly annoyed by his passive attitude. There was something that always made me mad about the fact that he never showed any emotions besides his already very neutral one. Is neutral even an emotion?

"I can't exactly tell them why you were down there when I don't even know in the first place." He told me, making quite a good point, as I left the room, shutting the door on him. It made me even more mad when I noticed him chuckling at me.

I came out to find all of my classmates around the door... nothing I didn't know. 

"What are you all looking at?" I snapped at them. They all went back into the classroom. Alice was left behind in the foyer along with Ben, a boy in my year that had had a crush on me since... forever and didn't mind letting everyone know. I could never like him like that. He's a good friend and all it's just it would be like dating Eric. Extremely awkward.

"Everything alright?" Alice asked me, sounding a bit concerned.

"Yeah, I just want to strangle Larsson right now for never letting a single frickin' emotion show on his face."

"Is that all your mad about?" Alice asked me.

"Duh. That man could have a billion rocks thrown at his face and never show any pain or sadness at all. It just pisses me off."

Alice started to chuckle a bit, "Oh my God, you are so incredibly stupid. You have that picture of you and him and all you can get mad at is the fact that he won't show any emotion."

"Your point?" I asked, realising that she made an incredible point. "Everyone knows that we're not together anyway. It just makes me a little mad that someone would say that."

"I just think you need to straighten out your priorities." She said, laughing.

"Well it made me mad because I went in there wanting to scream my head off and I come out with absolutely no satisfaction from yelling at all." I noticed both Ben and Alice cracking up. I thought about what I had just said and ended up chuckling a bit. "Okay I get it. My reason for being mad was just a little stupid... but just a little." It just made them crack up even more.

"Come on kids, go and get your instruments out." Mr Larsson said, peeping his head out his office door. "Let's go."

We all scurried into the classroom still laughing a bit. I guess there could be so much more to be angry at. At least the whole picture thing didn't get too out of hand I didn't need the trouble of having to tell everyone that Larsson and I were not in a relationship. Still there was the fact that I had to figure out who had even gone to the trouble of taking that picture. Whoever he or she was, orchestra or band, they were dead.

* * *

The day passed by quickly with a bunch of quick explanations being passed around about the pictures. Everyone was more curious as to why I was down there more than what I was doing with Larsson. Mr Larsson had already shredded the picture and the days events were quickly left behind to be part of history. It wasn't unusual for stuff like that to happen. 

I caught a ride home from Alice that evening after school. Eric had a late shift and couldn't drive me home.

Even though all of the hype had died down Alice still seemed to want to talk about the stupid picture.

"So who do you think posted that on the board?" She asked me. Well if I knew you would see the blood scattered across the floor I thought to myself, laughing at my joke.

I just shrugged, listening to my iPod with one earpiece in my ear. "I don't really care." The biggest understatement ever. I totally cared. I just wasn't ready to give the person the satisfaction of knowing it bothered me. I was going to sneak up on this person like a cat stalking its prey and then attack him or her back.

"I think it was someone in the band." Alice told her. I just looked at her, paying a bit more attention now.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, wanting to know what made her so sure. I wasn't exactly ready to just blame it on one of them, "It could just as easily been one of us."

"Who in our orchestra would do that?" She asked. I knew it, she just wanted to blame it on them because she didn't like them.

"I don't know." I replied, honestly not knowing. I knew a few people that might hold a grudge but, I wasn't going to hold a grudge.

"I would just watch your back."

"Come on tons of people go that way after school each day to get to the parking lot. It could've been anyone." I said.

"Whatever you say. Just think about it."

* * *

AN: Hmmm... who did it? Was Fia right or was Alice right? Well we'll have to see. This chaptre goes more into Larsson's character I think. I thought it was a bit funny the way he made Fia mad. I know I hate it when other people keep completely calm when I'm mad. It's just one of those things where I really want them to scream with me. So please leave a review and tell me what you think about this chapter. 


	3. The Sound of Confusion

AN: Chapter 3... awesome. So ya I forgot to put a disclaimer in the last chaptre but, no I do not own the iPod... because if I did I would actually have one. lol. I know sad I don't have an iPod. Whatever, life will go on. Hope you enjoy the next chapter of The Messed Up Life of a BandOrch Kid. I wrote this for my friends birthday today... HAPPY BIRTHDAY: )

* * *

Alice dropped me off at my house that evening, after she planted the seed of mistrust for the band in my head. My home wasn't anything special, just a small one story house that held my mom, Eric, and younger sister Rachael. It was home to me though, and had been my whole life, so it didn't really matter what size it was. I walked up the front steps and dug in my school bag for her key. Alice honked her horn to say good bye and then sped down the street. I opened the door and walked in. 

"Hey mom! I'm home." I yelled closing the door behind me and walking to the room I shared with Rachael.

"Hi honey." My mom popped her head around the corner of the kitchen. She had the same long (graying) auburn hair, blue eyes and tall figure that Rachael and I have. She had the warm smile any mother should have with a few wrinkles from when she went through the long painful divorce with my father when I was seven.

"I'll be right there mom." I threw my things on my side of the room and walked into the kitchen where my mom was cooking dinner.

"That orchestra called about an hour ago about your audition scheduling. I wrote it down on the pad next to the telephone." She said, pointing to the paper with the knife she was using to cut vegetables.

"Yes! I was waiting for this call. Thanks mom." I kissed her on the cheek and picked up a knife to help her with the vegetables. I had been practicing to the point of fatigue over the whole summer for this audition. If I wanted to have first chair again I would have to.

Shortly after I started helping the sound of the garage door opening was heard.

"Mommy!" My little sister, Rachael called from the door.

"In here." The pattering of feet was heard and then Rachael came around the corner in her brown Girl Scout uniform and flew into mom's outstretched hands. She is the mini-me version of me. I swear. Rachael looks exactly like me from when I was her age. She ran over to me and hugged my legs. I set the knife on the counter before I had the chance to stab her. I picked her up and she wrapped her legs around my waist like a panda. She was so-oooo adorable.

A moment later Eric walked around the corner as well and set his keys on the key hook.

"Hey Diane." He said, walking over to my mom and giving her a peck on the forehead. "Need help with dinner?"

"No, I think I got it. All of you just leave." She said shooing us out of her kitchen wielding her knife. We all scurried out.

Rachael and I entered our room to get out of our school things. The room wasn't much with its brown carpet and two beds that were stuffed in to make room for the two of us. We weren't exactly the richest family in the world but, we all helped to pull it together. We did at least have an extremely scenic view of... the driveway, through our window. Mom had planted briar under our window when I had entered high school just so I wouldn't be able to sneak away at night. I think she had some kind of fantasy that I would somehow find a boyfriend and that he would try to steal me away in the middle of the night. Either that or she was afraid that I would try to sneak away like our father had. Our mom had all of the right intentions but, why she honestly thought I would sneak out through the window was beyond us. Ever since my dad left us she never was the same.

I got dressed rapidly and pulled out my homework. I jumped on the bed (something my mom highly discouraged) and got started. I was almost done with my trig work when we all got a dinner call. The sound of doors opening and closing down the hallway rang followed by footsteps.

"Start eating. I got frsh bread from work today." She said, dropping a huge bowl of soup in the middle of the table. We all learned to eat our food no matter how nasty our food looked. Trust me it looked kind of nasty, but, no one ever complained.

Their spoons scraped away at the bowls.

"So how was school today, Fia?" My mom asked.

I didn't really feel like sharing so I decided to leave the story about the picture out of our family conversation, "It went well I guess. Just the usual."

"Rachael got a shining star on her book report today." Eric told us all butting into my mom's failed attempt at a conversation with me.

"Oh?" Her mom said, turning to Rachael.

"Yes. Teacher said that I wrote the best story she had ever read. Sam was sooo jealous." Sam was the class genius/bully.

"Brilliant dear. I'm so proud of you." My mom said, leaning over the table to kiss her. The rest of the dinner went by rather quickly leaving me time to squeeze in cello and homework.

Later that night I was laying in my bed thinking about the band... again. I had really postponed my thoughts long enough and it was time to face what I didn't want to do. I was going to have to stay away from the field... something I regretted having to do. I couldn't risk getting caught down there again especially after the days events. I had a feeling everyone would be really suspicious if I was caught down there again. My friends aren't stupid enough to not see what is happening. I kept on having treacherous thoughts about joining the band though. There was just something about it that made me itch for more. It was something different and what I wanted to do.

What's the worst they can do anyway? I may seem confident about this but, in the deep confines of my mind I know that the rest of my orchestra would not let me get away with me joining the band free of punishment. They could and would make my life miserable. If their hatred for the band wasn't enough evidence that they would then what was?

I was so frustrated. I turned over into my pillow and pounded my hands against it. Why is it that now of all times I decide I'm interested in band?I groaned.

"You okay Fia?" A tired voice came from the bed next to me.

"Yeah. Sorry, just go back to sleep." I told Rachael.

"Goodnight." She said, "I hope your dreams are granted."

I stopped and let my sister's last words hit me. There was a lot she didn't know but, something about the way she said it made something so complicated into something easy. I already knew her dreams weren't going to be granted though. From only two brief hearings I have known what my forbidden calling was... and I wasn't exactly ready to cross the boundaries just yet.

* * *

The next few weeks I remained totally and completely out of it. Since I had been caught by Mr Larsson I had not made another attempt to go down to the football field. I had stopped practicing cello as well and it showed. It _really_ showed. I went in for my audition and for the first time ever I didn't even _get_ a ranking... meaning I didn't make it into the orchestra at all. Mr Larsson had already told me that I was close to completely being thrown out of the chamber ensemble and even closer to being thrown out of first chair.

* * *

Her friends didn't make it any better for her either. They took her moment of weakness and made her start to seriously question her ability to play. She started to wonder if she belonged where she was. It wasn't so much the fact that she was deprived of the band that made her depressed. It was more along the lines of every comment they said against the band made her think of herself and then every comment the band made against the orchestra made her think of herself. She didn't seem to be able to fit in either one of the two groups and there was no in between. There's nothing worse than not knowing where you belong. 

On a cold Monday afternoon, Ben and Alice watched as Fia was putting her cello away after a practice that didn't go as well as it should have for her. She was wearing baggy pajama bottoms that she hadn't bothered to change out of from that morning and a gray sweatshirt that was wrinkled as if it had been sitting in the hamper for a few weeks and then carelessly thrown on. Her hair was in a messy braid and her face was free of any make-up.

"What's wrong with her?" Ben asked.

"I don't know but, it's starting to worry me." Alice said, "She won't even talk to me anymore."

They watched as Mr Larsson walked up to her. He told her something and she just nodded her head, following him into his office.

"I don't know what it is but, I intend to find out." Alice said, determined with herself.

* * *

Hearing my friends talk about me behind my back didn't really seem to bother me. They were just worried, not that there was much wrong with me. I was so confused. I honestly didn't feel like I belonged anywhere anymore. Nobody wanted me in the orchestra and the band. It wasn't that I didn't talk to Alice, it was more like she was afraid to hurt me even more because of my changes. 

I left Alice and Ben behind in the music room when Larsson walked up to me asking for a word. I didn't want to hear them talk about me anymore.

As soon as the door shut behind me I spoke, "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I'm a bit worried about you." He said, bluntly, "You haven't been acting like yourself for the past few weeks."

"You don't need to worry about me, sir." I said. Besides when has he cared?

"Sir? Come on, watsup?" He asked me. I just shrugged. "Is there something wrong at home? I know that you've had problems in the past with your father."

"There's nothing wrong with me or at home. Nothing." How did he even know about my father? I was in grade school when that happened.

"Okay let's make a list. First off, you have been showing up late for practice everyday for the last two weeks, you don't bother getting dressed in the morning, you haven't been practicing and this is the first time I've heard you talk to me or anyone else in forever." He paused, holding his fingers up as he counted them off. "Does this have anything to do with the picture a few weeks back or the time I found you under the bleachers?"

Wow... he's good. I took a breath and then started "I don't know what's wrong with me... that's the problem. I feel so confused." I looked at him for a moment before continuing, getting an encouraging nod from him, "I don't know where the hell I belong anymore. My friends are trying to pull me one way but, my mind wants me to go the other."

"Where are the two directions pulling you?" He asked me innocently. Okay he's good but, there's no way I am telling him that. I stopped talking and looked at my feet trying to find some answer. He instead attempted to answer for me, "You're not thinking about quitting music, are you?"

"Listen I just can't tell you." I said. He was my teacher and I could probably trust him with the truth but, I learned along time ago that the most trusted person can let you down, thanks to dear old dad.

"I see." He said. "I don't want to add to your pressure but, I just got word from one of my friends at the local youth orchestra that you totally failed your audition. I know that was very important to you. You yourself told me how hard you practiced for that over the summer."

"I know... it just doesn't seem to matter anymore." Mr Larsson looked at me as if he was trying to read my mind. I kept a straight face and looked at him right in the eye.

"I want you to get your act together Fia. I'm giving you a week off from the chamber ensemble to get your life sorted out and then I want you to come back with your conclusion." He told me. "You're dismissed."

I left feeling more miserable then I ever have in my entire life. I knew he wasn't trying to be mean, just trying to tell me the truth.

I walked into the music room bumping into a few people on the way and ignoring their complaints. Grabbing my cello I left without a single word to anyone. I needed to go to the one place where I knew I could be alone... The school's theatre. (AN: Haha you thought I was going to say the field. Nope time to introduce a new place)

* * *

During the school day the stage was known to be busy with the drama and orchestra students fighting over it but, after school it was left abandoned and dark for me to claim. I walked into the theatre closing the heavy doors behind me letting the eerie sound echo off the walls. 

"Hello?" No reply. It was all mine. I walked up the stairs dragging my cello with me. The janitors knew this is where I liked to practice after school hours and they would leave a chair and stand out for me on the stage.

I took the cello out of its case and tightened the bow. I sat down in the chair and brought my cello to me prepared to play. I wasn't expecting to hear something beautiful. I just wanted to have confirmation that there was something there between my cello and me. I loved it and wouldn't let anyone think otherwise but, as of lately I had started to notice that there was something missing, something that had never been there. I pulled the bow across the strings hearing a slightly better tone than I expected but, it was still lacking something. What was it? The question had been driving me crazy. All of these years I had practiced more than I had ever bothered doing anything else. So why was it that the saying 'practice makes perfect' didn't do my playing justice.

I started playing a rather complex song that I had learned when I was in the eighth grade. My technique was perfect, well worn fingers poised along the fingerboard in what should have been right posture but, they slipped. The music stopped and I was left alone, wrapped in the darkness of the theatre and my mind. Why did life have to be as unfair as to take one of the few things I had?

* * *

AN: Awww, what will happen to Fia now? This chaptre was a little on the darker side. So watsup with Fia's father? Well I'll explain that in later chaptres. For now I am going to focus on Fia's rather weird angsty moments. More on the band to come soon, within this next chaptre. Let's all hope that she can get it back together. Tell me what you think R&R. 


	4. The Sound of Enlightenment

AN: Chaptre 4... I am eating a cookie with raisins in it right now... even though I hate raisins.Yaaaaaaa!!! That was really random. Enjoy the next chappie of The Messed Up Life of a BandOrch Kid. : ) I hope you all like it.

* * *

The words Mr Larsson spoke to me in his office didn't seem to want to leave my head. 

'_You need to get your act together.'_ The words rang in ny head over and over again, after my last failure. Eric had always told me that if you don't succeed try again but, for some reason there was no inspiration for me to try. I got up quickly and walked to my case. A mixture of Larsson's words and Eric's were driving me crazy. I put the cello away and left it on the stage. I ran down the aisles to the exit and flung the door open. I was surprised that the sky was getting dark already.

How long have I been in there? I looked at my watch and was surprised to find that it read 6:19. I had been sitting in there for two and a half hours. My mom would be calling soon. I didn't care though, the call would just have to wait. I knew what I had to do. For the fourth time in my life I was making my way down to the football field. Get my act together, that was what I had to do and I knew that if I was going to do that I would have to be able to see what I wanted the most _just_ one more time.

The school campus was completely deserted. There was no light coming from any of the classrooms at all. The only thing lighting my path was the stadium lights and they were drawing me to them like a moth to fire.

I went towards the side of the entrance so whoever was on the field would not be able to see me. I hopped over a fence and gracelessly fell on the ground below me. It really hurt too. It would probably leave a bruise. Whatever, at least today I would have a better view from the side of the stands which were much closer to the actual field.

Instead of the whole band being there only two men stood on the astroturf. One of them I recognised as being Mr L and the other I remembered from the first practice as the soloist. The boy had light blonde hair and the whitest skin I had ever seen. It was even lighter than mine! I noticed he had a good three inches over Larsson's already tall height. I wish I could have seen his eyes but, something told me that if I saw them I would never be able to look away. Now that I could see him out of his uniform I saw that he was... totally _hot. _Not that he didn't look fine in the uniform too.

Mr Larsson was holding the boys horn and was demonstrating a few things with it, while rolling his feet, the whole while the boy nodding. I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying. Mr Larsson handed the boy his horn and backed up a few paces. The boy held the horn up and got ready to play, letting a moments pause rise in anticipation before holding out his first note. At first it was shaky but, he readjusted his mouth and tried again letting one very solid note carry across the night sky. It grew and grew into a very beautifully woven song that carried my mind on many idealistic adventures. It felt like the song knew everything about me and was telling me, my whole lifes story. I slowly appeared from my hiding spot, enraptured with the music, and walked closer to the chainlink fence. I twined the metal around my fingers and pressed my head against the cool fence and closed my eyes, just listening to the music. It stopped too soon for me though. Much too soon. I reopened my eyes trying to commit the song to memory before it faded, and stared across the field, forgetting that I was in plain sight.

Mr Larsson jumped in and started talking as soon as the last note faded, throwing in his own criticism. In my opinion it was perfect, not worthy of having Mr Larsson's words sully it. The boy listened carefully to his comments though, looking down at his feet and concentrating on his toes. His eyes slowly wandered up and he spotted me. We locked eyes and he froze. Mr Larsson stopped talking when he realised he had lost the boy's attention. He followed his students line of sight and saw me too.

I really didn't care that they had seen me. In a way it was easier than having to explain all of this in words to Mr L. I gave Mr Larsson a small smile and mouthed the word 'thank you' to the both of them. He nodded his head in understanding. I think he actually was able to see what I had been going through and I watched as all of the puzzle pieces I layed out for him began to fit together in his mind. The boy looked between us in confusion. It just made him even more cute. Finally content with myself I just walked away, I didn't run, just simply walked away. There was no need to run away anymore.

* * *

'_So that's what your problem is.' _I thought as I watched her leave, still a little bewildered by her sudden appearance. 

"What was she doing here? Isn't she one of your orchestra students?" My student asked, gripping his horn tighter.

"I don't know what she was doing here." I lied, not bothering to answer the second question, "Let's get back to work so we can both go home."

He hesitated a bit. I knew he was smart enough to know that I wasn't letting on but, I didn't have to tell him everything, now did I? I watched as he brought his horn to his lips again and got ready for another run through.

* * *

I walked back up to the theatre where I had left my things. I found all of my stuff pushed into the corner, my school bag resting on the chair I had used. I checked through MY bag to make sure nothing was missing and took out my cell. 

The screen said, "_Eight Missed Calls."_ I flipped down to the menu and entered the missed calls.

"Mom, mom, mom, mom, Eric, Mom, Mom, Mom. " I read to myself.

_Shit! I better call home to let my mom know I'm not dead._

The phone rang once before the phone picked up.

"_Hello_?" My mom's voice carried over the phone.

"Hey mom."

"_Where were you? I called like twenty times_." She said,

"Actually it was seven and I was wondering if you could come pick me up at school. I stayed after to practice and lost track of time." I told her, feeling a bit guilty about worrying her.

"_Okay, next time just call before hand_." She told me, hanging up the phone. I stuffed my cell in my bag and grabbed my things. I turned the lights off so the janitors wouldn't have to do it themselves and walked outside. The theatre entrance was right next to the orchestra and I really didn't want to have a run in with my teacher at the moment. I thought my being at the field was self explanatory enough without me having to tell him. I rushed past the room and into the upperclassmens parking lot where my mom would most likely pick me up.

* * *

"So do you want to tell me who the girl is now?" The boy asked, joking with me. We were done practicing and making our way back up to the music room. 

"Not really." I told the boy, trying to keep Fia's life private.

"O-oooh, I get it... a girlfriend." He said, smiling widely. Yeah as if that would happen. The thought of the picture came to mind and I wondered if he had posted it. I took a look at him and decided that it wasn't him. Kevin may joke around but, he wouldn't harm another person. Would he?

"Heh-heh, you wish." I said, with obviously false laughter. "I know the band is trying to get me hooked up with every other woman they see but, students don't count."

"So she is in the orchestra." Kevin said, hiding his reaction.

"What makes you say that?" I said, trying to play my cards right.

"Well she isn't in the band." He pointed out.

... "I'm getting too old for this job. My students are outsmarting me. How many years until I can retire?" I asked myself, half meaning it half joking. Kevin just stared at me waiting for an answer, "Yes, she is in the orchestra. Happy?

"Then..."

"No more questions. It's none of your business." I said, trying to make it sound final.

"I could just bother her about it." Kevin told me.

"No you won't because if you do you won't be playing the mellophone solo at our performances." I said, putting my finger to my lip, as if I were thinking, "I bet Kelly would do good with the solo.

"You wouldn't do that. You and I both know Kelly can't play for crap." He told me. He was right of course but, it was still fun to tease him.

"Language." I said, catching his swear word and giving him a warning, "And yes, I would give her your position."

"Ok fine I won't bother her." Kevin said, we both walked into the music room, I went into my office and Kevin walked into the locker rooms.

I heard him mutter to himself as the door closed, "Geeze, what makes her so important?"

Nothing besides the fact that she has the right to her own privacy, I thought to myself.

* * *

AN: Now that Fia's problem is totally out in the open with Larsson what will happen next... hmmmmmm read to find out. I wonder if Kevin maybe had something to do with the picture. So for this chapter I decided to go more towards the POV's of other people besides just Fia. Well tell me what you think by review.


	5. The Sound of Desire Part 1

AN: For those of you that are waiting for the marching band aspect of this story to come in trust me it will soon. This whole section of the story is basically setting everything up for later chapters.

Also Fia's younger sister Rachael is age seven. I got a question about it so I just thought that I would give a reply to it. Let's see... also in regards to chapter three I did switch to third person on purpose. For that particular paragraph it seemed easier to show what was going on from a different vantage point. Well thanks for the reviews and please tell me what you think about the story. Fell free to tell me about anything I can fix.

* * *

"Hey, Fia." Jamie, the second chair cellist and my rival of five years said, "Are you ready to get kicked out of orchestra?" 

"Hmmm... I don't know... are you ready to back off?" I asked her, she was the most annoying wanna-be-section-leader ever. She had definetely not made my life easier in the past few weeks. I sat down in my rightful chair ready to start class out the right way.

"Ummm excuse me but, I believe that is your seat back there." She said, in the most airheaded way. She was pointing to the last seat in our section.

"I'm sorry but, I believe that _I _am still section leader. I'll move when Larsson tells me to." I told her. Usually we got along with our fake smiles and false cheer but, I could tell Jamie was aboutto snap at me.

"Okay class take your seats." Larsson said walking into the room. Everyone sat down. Jamie was the last one standing as Mr Larsson took roll. She just kept on glaring at me. I had to admit it was fun making her mad but, she did kind of have a good reason to be mad at me... not that she would be able to lead a section well.

Larsson looked up from roll and saw her still standing, "Is there something wrong, Miss Finn?" He said, addressing her by last name.

"No, nothing at all." She said, finally sitting down. I didn't show any expression on my face.

"Oh I see that our Miss Lane has decided to show up for class on time today and ready to go." He said, looking at me with a knowing smile. I grinned back at him. "Let's see how well you do today then."

Jamie's face visibly turned purple in her anger. I wasn't getting kicked out today that was for sure.

* * *

I made it through the rest of orchestra ignoring Jamie the whole while. I was in an extremely good mood though because I had played better than I had in a long time. 

As I was putting my cello away the last thing the last possible thing that I thought could happen happened. She slapped me. Okay I wasn't that shocked, I knew she hated me but, I didn't think she would slap me... especially not in front of the rest of our orchestra class.

Everyones heads turned to us waiting to see what my reaction would be. Now if this had been two days ago I probably would have slapped her back but, instead I just stood there and touched the spot on my face where she slapped me, not letting a bit of emotion show through. It was almost something Larsson would do when a student came complaining to him.

She started yelling at me, "You don't deserve first chair!"

Anyone that hadn't been watching came to watch our one sided battle after they heard that.

"I bet you got your spot just because you're Mr Larsson's whore." She spat, letting all sorts of spite show through. It kind of amused me that she was going to such lengths just to discredit me.

I watched the look on Jamie's face turn from hatred to fear when she felt Mr Larsson's hand grab her shoulder. He had snuck up on her as she was talking.

"Anything else you would like to say?" He asked her. She shook her head. Negative. "I'll let you slip with just an office referral this time."

Score for me. I kept my image and was gaining my standing as a section leader again.

I looked around the room where everyone was wandering back to their own thing again. It wasn't really that surprising that Jamie would have done something like that, everyone knew she hated me.

I caught Alice's eye but, she turned around and walked away from me. I followed her into the locker room. I saw her struggling with all of her books and I took them from her. She didn't say anything to me, just pretended like I wasn't there.

"Are you ignoring me?" I asked her. She met my eyes and paused for a second to think.

She gave me a smile, "You know I can't ignore you for long."

"Friends?"

"Best friends." She jumped over and hugged me. It was the first time we had talked to each other in two weeks. She let go and asked me the question I knew everyone was dying to know, "So what was up with you?"

"I just went through a whole phase where I didn't know what the point of playing music was." I told her part of the truth. Even she didn't need to know the whole thing.

"A whole bunch of us were worried. You weren't exactly acting like yourself." She told me.

"To tell you the truth I don't think _I_ knew myself." I told her.

"I'm just glad to have you back." She said, giving me another hug.

* * *

The next day I met up with Alice at lunch at our usual spot. 

"I swear, there is no way I am going to pass english this year with the amount of essays Mr Johnson is handing out." I said, dropping my lunch on the table. I sat down with a huge sigh.

"I remember Mr Johnson." Alice said, "...He hated me."

"That's because you skipped class every other day." I pointed out.

"No, he just hated me to hate me." She said. I honestly doubted that but, drama and her went hand in hand so whatever.

"Hey is there anyone sitting here." I looked up to see Ben. I motioned for him to sit down and he slid in next to me. A little bit too close for my liking.

"Hey Ben." Alice said.

"Hi." He looked over his shoulder, "Fia, did you notice that guy over there keeps on looking at you?"

I turned around to where he was looking. I got a fleeting glimpse of blue eyes flashing straight at mine before they looked away, realizing I was looking straight at him. It was the soloist I had seen a few days before.

"That's weird." I said, playing stupid. Of course he would be looking at me. Why wouldn't he?

"Do you know him?" Ben asked me.

"No." I said, I was telling the truth. I didn't _technically_ know him.

"I know him. That's Kevin Williams. He used to be in my pre-calculus class until he switched out. Something about band conflicting with his schedule." Alice told us, "He's in your year and probably the biggest band nerd in this whole school."

"Pre-calculus in his sophomore year?" I said, sounding completely stunned. I was kind of trying to use it as a change of subject though.

"I wonder what he wants with you?" Alice asked.

"If you want I can go over there to tell him to stop looking at you." Ben offered. Yeah, as if that would work. The last thing we needed was a fight with the band to break out.

"No it's okay. I don't really care." I tried saying with as much finality as I could, hoping that it would change the subject.

It worked, Alice started talking about the homecoming dance. I took one more look at the boy, Kevin. His eyes were still on me shamelessly. I looked straight back at him, trying to figure out how this game was played. What was it in those eyes that I saw? It didn't look like hate or acceptance. It looked almost like he was observing me in... amusement? I don't know what it was but, it was weird.

Our eye contact was broken when one of his friends who held a pair of drumsticks in his hand poked him in the shoulder. He was a bit shorter then Kevin probably with curly brown hair and green eyes. He said something to Kevin and then he got up. He looked back one more time at me and then left with his friend. I waited a few seconds more before I tuned back into Alice's conversation.

"... green dress, with a gold sash. My mom said she didn't like the cut-off around my shoulders though..." I tuned back out, pretending to be listening. I didn't really care about this kind of thing.

Thankfully the bell rang quickly. I really did not feel like listening to Alice's dance preparations. I didn't have a date and would definetely not be going. I could probably still take up Ben's offer to take me but, to tell you the truth I didn't want to go with him. I just didn't want to go at all.

* * *

When school was over Larsson asked me to stay after for a few moments. As of lately it seemed like I was spending more time talking to him than anyone else. 

"Yes?" I asked him coming up to his podium. He waited until the last few people were outside before continuing.

"So yesterday I was at a music shop and I came across the perfect French Horn for a beginner." He told me.

"So?" I said, giving him a confused look.

"So..." He said, continuing, "I bought it. I think that it would be perfect for you to start on."

I laughed a bit, "You've got to be joking me."

"Nope." He said. There was no way. This had to be a joke. Another problem hit me though.

"I can't." I told him, a bit embarassed by my situation.

"Why not?" He asked, frowning a bit.

"I don't have the money." I told him, my voice barely above a whisper. He caught what I said somehow though.

"Oh don't worry about money. You can borrow it from the school." I gave him a skeptic look.

I paused for a moment, his offer was almost too tempting. How did he know my weakness? Before continuing I tried to hide my excitement, "I'll think about it."

That put a smile on his face. "Okay you think about it. Maybe talk about it with your mom."

"Okay I'll see you tomorrow." I slung my bag across my shoulder and made my way to the bus stop by the parking lot. I had decided to ride the local bus home simply because it was my easiest form of transportation today. I dropped a few bus tolkens into the slot in the front next to the drivers seat and made my way to down the aisle. There was no seat so I stood in the aisle way and held on to one of the poles as the bus pulled away from the curb onto the street. I put my iPod on high and listened to Bach's Prelude Suite No. 3 for cello.

We were on our second stop when a lady with a baby basket swinging off her left arm and a little girl holding her hand came by me. I reached back to grab my cello so I could make room for them to pass. My hands met air. I turned around to see nothing there at all. My heart flipped in about fifty circles before I realised I had left it at school in the music room.

"Excuse me." The lady said. I made room for her and then dashed for the door to the bus so I could head back to the school. I jumped off right as the bus driver closed the door.

"Hey!" I heard him yell.

"Sorry!" I said, waving back at him. He just shook his head before pulling away from the curb.

It was five minutes before the next bus came heading in the direction of school. They were the longest five minutes of my life. I knew that my cello would be fine but, I still had not gotten over the shock of when I discovered my cello was not with me.

As soon as the bus pulled up at the stop by my school I jumped off and ran back to the music room. I opened the heavy sound proof doors and walked into retrieve my cello.

"I'm so sorry Lynn. I didn't mean to leave you behind." I said, apologising to my cello, using the name I gave it. I know weird that I named it but, so what.

I picked it up ready to leave and noticed that I left all of my music under the wheels when I had gone to talk to Larsson. I balanced everything in my hands as I went to open the ridiculously heavy doors. I slipped somewhat and tripped over the back part of my cello. My music went flying from its folder in a huge cloud of paper. I closed my eyes bracing myself for the fall.

It never happened. Someone caught me by the wrist and spun me around in their arms supporting me against themself. I slowly opened my eyes and saw I was in no other than Kevin Williams arms. I was speechless. He carefully helped me find my footing on the ground and I stood up straight brushing myself off, trying to hide my embarassment.

"Thank you." I muttered.

"No problem. You okay?" He asked me with the smallest sign of a laugh on his lips.

"Fine." My face went totally red. Every thought about me consorting with the enemy totally and completely flew out the window. He was hotter than I thought he was. I bent over to pick up all of my scattered music. He just stayed where he stood watching me try to cover my obvious embarassment.

"Is everything alright? I heard a noise." Mr Larsson said, from his office. He walked to his door. "Ahh, are you back so soon?"

He was looking right at me so I took it that he meant myself. "Yeah, I just forgot my cello after you told me... well, yeah."

There was an awkward silence that was thankfully broken by Larsson. "Okay right time for introductions. I wasn't planning on doing this today but, seeing as we're all here why not?"

Kevin and I looked at each other in confusion. "Kevin, Fia, Fia, Kevin." He said, taking my hand and handing it to Kevin to shake. "Fia here, has expressed an interest in playing the French Horn."

"Oh really?" Kevin asked, releasing my hands and crossing his arms, giving me a once over.

"Kevin is the best French Horn player we have at the school, Fia." I nodded my head in acknowledgment. "That's what you both have in common I guess. Both brilliant talents."

Okay, now what was he getting at?

"Kevin is going to help you learn how to play French Horn." He said.

"What?!" He said, a bit shocked. "It's marching season. I won't have the time to teach her. Besides she's in the orchestra."

"Nonsense. You'll have plenty of time. Practice only starts after six anyway." Larsson told him. It was my turn to break into the conversation.

"Mr Larsson, I really don't want to be a burden." I said, my voice was almost a whisper again and I know that the two men watched as my face turned red again. It seemed to be doing that a lot lately, "Besides... I already told you I don't have the money."

I felt Kevin look at me with those hawk eyes of his regarding me with the same look he had tossed at me earlier. He was studying me _very_ carefully and I knew it. I hated the fact that I had to say that in front of them.

"Umm well..." Mr Larsson's voice was cut off by Kevin's.

"Free of charge." He said, simply.

"What?" I asked him.

"You heard me. Free of charge." He said again, "Come tomorrow after school with your horn ready to work hard. I won't make it easy on you so prove to me that you want to do this... Prove to me that not all of you orchestra people are a bunch of airheaded snobs."

I was speechless. "Excuse me... we're not all like that. You just wait and see. I'll show you that not all of us are." I shut up after he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Prove it." He said. I realised that Kevin would be doing a lot for me. I shouldn't be fighting him when he was taking the time to teach me. But still I would show him what I was made of. He had just challenged me anyway.

Mr Larsson smiled at the way we were getting along and held onto my shoulders, wheeling me into his office and away from the mess that I had made on the floor with all my music.

"I knew you would say yes, so I kept it out for you." He reached behind his desk and pulled out a huge black case. He set it between us and clapped his hands together, "Open it up."

I did. It was a beautiful goldish colour with the metal spinning around in many different circles. My face reflected at me in the bell. It was like looking into one of those fun house mirrors at the carnival. I reached in to pick it up looking for permission from Larsson. He nodded his head. I turned it over in my hands and saw every little fingerprint I had left behind. I must have looked like a child on Christmas morning, I was smiling so widely. I honestly didn't know that I wanted to play it this much.

"If you find the serial number for me I'll write it down and then it is yours to take home." He told me. He was definetely amused by my excitement.

I flipped it over looking for numbers on it but, I didn't see any. He was searching in the cabinets behind his desk for the rental lists that he had put away only a few weeks ago. Seeing me still looking for the numbers he called Kevin in.

"Yes?" His head poked through the door.

"Help her find the serial number on there." Kevin took it from my hands and immediately found it. I felt like such an idiot, the number was in such plain sight.

"Got it. You ready?" He asked, Larsson. He flipped through his notebook and then nodded his head. Kevin tilted his head so he could see the numbers better, the hair at the back of his neck kind of ruffled out a bit. "Okay it's PR486720."

He looked the horn over and then handed it back to me. For lack of anything better to say I said, "Cool, thanks."

"Anything else." Kevin asked, Larsson shook his head, no. "Okay then, I'm going to go practice." He opened the door, "I'll see _you_ tomorrow directly after school. Don't be late." He said, pointing straight at me, walking out the door backwards. As if I would be late. My last class of the day was orchestra.

"It's yours to take home now." Larsson said, snapping the case shut and handing it to me. He turned away from me for a second and reached into another filing cabinet and pulled out a stack of new music books. He set them in my arms. Just to let you know balancing all of this was not exactly the easiest thing and the case was not all that light either. I wobbled out into the foyer with Larsson following me. I set everything down and picked up all of the music that I still had yet to pick up. I stacked it with the french horn music and put it into my bag.

"Hey Larsson, don't tell anyone about this, okay?" I asked him.

"Sure thing, just work hard okay?"

"Deal." I picked up my cello and my newest addition to my instrument family. I looked at him and let out a breath of air and smiled. "Thanks."

"No prob. See you tomorrow." He said, getting the door for me. As soon as I was outside I dialled Eric's number figuring he had to be out of work by now.

He picked up the phone after three rings.

"_Hey Fia."_

"Hey, do you mind picking me up at school?" I asked him, hoping that he didn't. I didn't really think that the bus driver would let me on with all of this stuff.

"_Sure, I'll be right down."_

* * *

AN: Wow I just looked at the word count and realized that this is my longest chapter yet...So what did you think about this chapter? I was really happy while I wrote this one. It reminded me of the time I touched a brass instrument for the first time. I guess you could say that I was basically writing the part where she sees the French Horn based on my own memories. 

Finally she has gotten a hold of her French Horn! And she had talked to Kevin face to face for the first time! Things are starting to come together. Well please leave a review if you want telling me what you think


	6. The Sound of Desire Part 2

AN: This is the second part of chapter 5. It just got too long so I had to break it down. Enjoy!

* * *

Shortly after I dialled Eric up he was in the parking lot. He saw me walking with all of my stuff and turned off the engine of his truck to come help me. He grabbed my french horn and looked at the case. 

"What's this?" He asked me, testing its weight like a typical guy.

"It's a French Horn." I said simply.

"Why do you have it?"

"I'm starting French Horn."

"What do you think your mom's going to say?" He asked me.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about that yet." I told him. I would figure out a way to tell her over dinner.

We threw the instruments into the back seat of his truck and then left the school. This time I didn't forget any of my stuff.

* * *

"Mom I'm home!" I cried, giving her my usual greeting. I tried sneaking past the kitchen to hide the horn in my room but, my mom caught me with it. 

"What's that sweety?" She said, pointing to the case I was trying to hide behind my cello. It was a failed attempt at concealing it.

"It's a French Horn." I told her.

"What's it here for?" She asked me, being the smart mom that she was.

"I decided to give it a try." My mom raised her eyebrows.

"Well... As long as it doesn't interfere with your cello, I'll be fine with it." She said, being the totally cool mom I knew. I squeaked in delight and rushed up to hug her as best as I could while holding all of my stuff. I rushed into my room and lay the case out on the bed. Rachael, who was trying to do her homework on the other bed, looked over at it with interest.

"What is it?" She asked. I replied by throwing the case open letting the shining metal glint out at her. She climbed off her bed and crawled onto mine.

I had been itching to try it ever since I took it out of the case the first time. I opened one of the beginner books Larsson had given me to look through.

I found the mouthpiece and placed it where it was supposed to go and then I tried to make a sound. Nothing came out.

"I don't think you're doing it right." Rachael said, pointing out the total obvious. I looked through the first few pages of the book before trying again. Apparently I needed to form something called... embouchure.

I tried again, this time using the instructions.

Voila! A sound. It wasn't very beautiful but, at least it was a sound.

Rachael jumped up and down on the bed. "You made a sound! You made a sound!"

"Fia." The voice of our mom coming down the hallway was heard. The next thing I knew she popped her head through the door having us both look like deer caught in the headlights. "I'm happy that you got a new instrument but, for everyone's sake please only play it at school until you get a little better. Mrs Donahue just had a baby and we don't want to disturb it."

"Okay." I said, quickly agreeing. There was nothing worse than having a baby up all night screaming and crying in protest.

"Thanks dear." My mom said, wiping her hands on her apron.

* * *

That night as my mom gave us our dinner Rachael came up with a question for my mom. 

"Mom, is it okay if I start an instrument too?" She asked. My mom's face paled a bit. The cost of an instrument for my sister was something we probably couldn't afford. We had barely been able to pay for my cello but, we had gotten help from my grandparents who had both recently died.

"We'll think about it." She said. I felt bad for Rachael. It was entirely unfair that she couldn't play one just because she was the younger child. Rachael's face fell a bit.

* * *

"So what kind of instrument do you want to play?" I asked Rachael later that night after dinner. 

"Hmm... I was thinking about viola." She told me. I thought about it for a moment.

"What if I said I could try to help you get one?" I watched as Rachael's face brightened up. "But, you can't tell mom yet, okay?"

"Okay." She smiled. I bet she looked like me when I saw the French Horn earlier that day.

In truth I couldn't get her an actual viola but, I knew that Alice had an old violin that she didn't use anymore. I could pretty easily make it into a viola for her if I got the strings.

* * *

Beep!Beep!Beep! 

I reached over to hit the alarm clock next to my bed. I looked at it.

5:00

"Ughhh! It's too early." I said. I reset the clock for another two hours for Rachael. I rolled off the bed with my blankets and wrapped myself up in them. During the winter it was freezing after I took my shower so I always wrapped up in a blanket.

I grabbed a towel and walked down to the shower that Eric, Rachael and I shared. I stood under the water for about two minutes like a zombie before I started to wake up. It was my morning routine; wake up in the morning, complain about it and then take a shower half asleep.

I jumped out when I heard Eric knocking on the door.

"Fia I have to be at work in thirty minutes." He said through the door.

"I'm almost done." I said, patting myself dry and wrapping up in the blanket. I put on my makeup, brushed my teeth and hair in the time span of a minute. I opened the door walking out of the steam. The cold air hit me making me take my breath in fast.

"Thanks." He said, rushing past me. His work wasn't necessarily close to us so I knew he had to hurry.

I blinked my eyes a few times trying to adjust to the change in lighting and then headed for my room. I started going through my closet throwing stuff on the bed that might be somewhat acceptable for the day. I finally decided on a dark green turtle neck and a pair of jeans. It was getting colder and colder faster now that fall was at it's height. If we were lucky it wouldn't snow for another month.

I walked into the kitchen and poured some water into a pan to make porridge and set it on the stove. I sat down at our kitchen table head in my hands, still trying to wake up.

I was almost back to sleep when I felt a pair of strong hands massaging my shoulders.

"Hey mom."

"Good morning." She said, "Do you have everything for school today?"

"Yeah." That's when I realised I had to take my horn in today too. There was no way that I could get it there without people noticing.

"What's the matter honey?" She asked, obviously feeling the tension in my shoulders.

"I don't know how I am going to get my French Horn into the school without other people noticing."

"Does it really matter if someone see's you with it?" She asked me.

"Yes." I ran to the stove and spooned the porridge into a bowl for my mom and I, turning off the fire. I took huge bites swallowing it fast.

"What's the hurry?"

"We have to go now." I said. If we were going to beat everyone to school we would have to leave right then.

"But, it's still so early." She pointed out. I checked my watch. It read 6:07.

"We're good. Besides you'll get to work right on time if we go now." I ran down the hallway leaving my bowl on the kitchen counter. I knocked on Eric's bedroom door. "We're going. Bye."

"Bye." I heard the reply.

Time to go. I grabbed my bag and two instruments and made a beeline for my mom's car. She was already inside waiting for me. I jumped in and we took off out the drive way.

* * *

"I still don't understand why you have to leave so early." She told me, when we were halfway to the school. 

"Do you have any idea how many people would kill me if they saw this thing?" I asked her, she was silent as if thinking over what I said.

"I still don't get it but, that's okay. As long as it makes sense to you." She let off a huge yawn at our next stoplight.

I looked at the cars built in clock. 6:21. We were making good time.

As soon as we got to the school I gave my mom a quick kiss and then I towed everything to the music room. From what I'd seen so far the school was deserted.

I tried the door to see if I could drop off my stuff. Locked. I sank against the wall next to the door and rested my head on my cello case. I got comfortable and then I felt my eyes begin to droop.

_It's too damn early._

* * *

The sound of keys tinkling against each other entered my dreamless sleep and then I felt a foot nudge my side. 

"You okay?" Mr Larsson's voice asked me from above.

I blinked my eyes a few times and then looked up at him half dazed. "Yeah, I'm good, just tired."

"What are you doing here so early?" He asked me. I looked at my watch again out of habit. 6:34. Before-school classes would be starting soon.

"Well I needed to drop this off before someone see's me with it." I told him. He nodded his head and opened the door. He wordlessly took the French Horn case inside and set it next to him as he unlocked his office door. He brought it in with him and set it against the wall. "It'll be in here after school. We'll work something out so you won't have to get here so early each morning."

With that he waved me away. I dropped my cello off in the room and then left to go find my usual spot where all my friends hung out.

* * *

As soon as the bell rang I was out of my chair and packing my cello up. Mr Larsson said I could get my Horn from his office after school and that is where I went. He wasn't in there so I sat in his swivel chair and waited for the rest of the orchestra to leave. 

The swivel chair was fun. I spun around in a few circles, completely enjoying myself, until I saw a dark blur standing in the doorway. It was Larsson.

"The coast is clear." He told me, I stopped spinning rapidly, and jumped up to get the horn. I wobbled a bit having gotten up too fast and held onto Larsson's desk so I could get stable again.

"Ughhh... Don't try that." I told him, he smiled a bit at me.

"I do it all the time." He joked.

Both of us turned around when we heard the outside door open. "Is she here yet?" Kevin's voice came from the foyer, asking Larsson.

"Yeah, she's waiting for you." Kevin walked up to the door and looked in at me. His own case swung at his side. He gave me a small frown, which I didn't understand.

"So you showed up?" I didn't answer him. Of course I showed up! He made a motion for me to follow him. "Come on."

"Here." Larsson threw him a set of keys, "Use the back practice rooms today."

Kevin unlocked about three doors before we finally made it into the back practice rooms. When Larsson said back, he meant back. I had never been in this practice room before. It was usually reserved for people that took lessons at the school... which was what I was doing now.

He switched on the light and closed the door behind us. The room wasn't exactly big or small, it was just right for the two of us to fit into with room to practice. Four chairs were stacked near the wall and a few stands were littered everywhere.

Kevin didn't say anything to me which just made everything really awkward. He handed me a chair and then took out his horn.

Finally he said something. "You can take it out you know."

"Oh... yeah." I said, knealing on the floor quickly to take it out, not wanting to fail my first lesson. I was really tense. I did not want to do anything to make myself appear to be stupid.

"So what do you know about French Horn?" He asked me, turning around with his horn. O-oh... If I hadn't wanted to appear stupid he probably shouldn't have asked that question.

"Umm... It sounds cool." I said, saying the only thing that came to my mind. Now that was a stupid answer. I brought the horn out of it's case in its entirity, trying not to look at his face, which was raised in a 'is-that-the-best-you-got' type of look.

"Besides that." He said, waving my last comment away.

"Then nothing really." I told him. Was it really my fault that I didn't know anything?

"Okay then, let's start with how you are going to hold it." He sat down in his chair and I followed. "Take your left hand and drape your first three fingers on the valves... valves are the buttons that you press on." He added, when he saw my confusion. Duh... how could I not know that? I placed my fingers like he said. He took my hand and made a few adjustments and then leaned back to admire his work. He nodded. "Now take your right hand and put it on the top of the bell." I figured the bell had to be the part where the sound came out. He nodded his head when I gripped onto it. Whew... I must have been right.

"Am I good?" I asked, he nodded his head.

"Later on when you get better I'll teach you how you can use your fist inside the bell but, for right now don't worry about it." He told me. "Let's worry about actually getting a sound out. We'll do notes later."

"Embouchure?" I asked. He cringed a bit. I had obviously pronounced it wrong.

"Yes, and it's pronounced em-boe-shur." He said, annunciating every syllable for me. "It's a french word meaning, 'form of mouth'."

He showed me what it looked like with his lips and then placed the mouthpiece against them. He took it away from his mouth and said, "You need to part your teeth a bit inside your mouth," He stretched his lips so I could see, "and let a steady stream of air come out. Don't blow down like you would with a flute, instead blow straight into the hole. Buzz your lips while you do it and don't apply to much pressure against the mouthpiece with your mouth. Just kind of relax." He held out his hand signaling for me to try.

Okay wait... was I supposed to understand that? He just looked at me expecting me to try. I raised the horn and attempted to do everything he had just showed me. Apparently I did it wrong though because before he even let me make a sound he stopped me. "No, you're pursing your lips too much."

I exhaled trying to calm myself down. I was tensing all over because of how nervous I was. Apparently he saw that I was, "Just calm down. You're all tense." He told me the obvious.

"No I'm not." I said, trying to deny it. I let my shoulders fall a bit though contradicting my words.

"Okay that's better. Let's try again." He said, running his tongue over his lips before putting the horn to his mouth and demonstrating for me again.

He watched me with hawk's eyes as I tried again, this time he made no move to stop me. I wet my lips like he had and then I blew. The note I made wasn't sweet and buttery like his note. Mine reminded me more of rocks grinding against each other. But still, it was a sound! I looked over at him waiting for his approval. He had a frown on that I was pretty sure was going to remain there permanently.

"No, do it again." He said, setting his horn on his knee and crossing his arms

* * *

An hour later I was still trying to get a note that would be considered somewhat acceptable in his eyes, when Larsson came to check on us. 

"How are things going?" He asked us.

"She got a sound out of it at least." He told him.

"Let's hear." He said, looking at me. I wet my lips and took the exact same position I had been in for what now felt like forever. I blew in getting a note that was better but still really airy. Larsson didn't say anything to me about it, instead he turned to Kevin, "Did you teach her tonguing?"

"No, she's not ready for that yet. We're not moving on until she gets a solid note." He told him. They were both talking about me as if I wasn't there.

"Well at least teach her some good breathing exercises."

"I was going to." Kevin said.

"Okay, I'll let you guys go then. You might want to start wrapping it up soon though. Band practice will be starting in about twenty minutes." Mr Larsson told us both, closing the door as he left.

"You can pack your horn up." Kevin told me as soon as the door clicked shut. I obliged, "We're going to go over some breathing exercises."

As soon as I set the horn down I realised that my lips felt really weird. I touched them to try and reduce the tingly feeling.

"Just let your lips be, you'll get used to it." Kevin said, watching me as he put away his own horn, wiping any remaining fingerprints off with his cloth.

I sat back down in my chair waiting for his instruction. He brought out an old beat up metronome from a pocket in his case and set it on the stand turning it on to about 98 bpm. "The concept of this exercise is for you to get your breathing even by using your diaphragm. You inhale for twenty counts letting your stomach expand and keeping your breath steady. Then you exhale for twenty counts, hissing. You let your stomach deflate and you need to keep the hiss steady for all twenty counts." He demonstrated by putting one hand on his chest and another on his stomach. "Don't let your chest rise or fall while you're breathing... only your stomache. Got it?"

I put my hands on my chest and stomach like he had and tried it. I breathed in but, my stomach deflated instead of expanded.

"No you're doing it wrong. Breath deep down. You're a human vacuum. Remember that. Now try again." He said, I still couldn't do it. I frowned a bit, getting frustrated.

"I can't." I said.

"Try it again." I did but, still couldn't do it. "Okay you can go now."

I took that as a dismissal. I was upset and worried that he might not want to teach me again after this lesson. I reached for my horn grabbing it by the handle.

"Thanks for your time." I said, looking him straight in the face.

"You're welcome." Giving me no hint whatsoever of what he thought about our leson. He followed me out and into the music room, locking all of the doors behind us. A bunch of band kids were gathered getting ready for practice. Kevin left me and went into the locker room. I got a few looks from the band but, other than that they just let me be.

My cello was in the same corner that I had left it in and I put all of the music I had, inside the case. I felt miserable. Was he so willing to judge me after only hearing me once?

"Fia." I heard Kevin's voice calling me from the locker room. He was hanging around the door, "I'll see you directly after school tomorrow." He told me quickly, before walking back in to the locker playing a few notes on the trumpet like instrument that I had seen him playing on the field before. Yes! At least I knew that he wanted me to come back again. That must have meant that I hadn't done so badly.

I left the music room with one more thing to do before I went home. I entered Larsson's office. There were three other bando's in there, including the one that I had seen with the drumstick's at lunch the day before. They all turned towards me stopping their conversation and giving me questioning looks, which I ignored.

"Hey Fia." Larsson said, looking around at everyone after the awkward silence, "What do you need?"

"Can I leave this here tonight? My mom won't let me practice at home." I explained. He nodded his head and I left it next to his desk and hightailed it out before anyone else could come in.

* * *

I walked into the locker room leaving Fia behind to get her own things. She seemed pretty upset. It came to my mind that she might not want to take another lesson from me _if _I decided to take her on. I guess I had come off as a bit cold but, hey... if you can't take the pressure music puts on you then you shouldn't be there. 

I was taking my mellophone of its shelf when I started to feel kind of bad about Fia. Ugh... Why do I have to have a heart? The next thing I knew I was holding onto the side of the door.

"Fia." I called, hoping that I had said the name right. "I'll see you directly after school tomorrow." I saw her eyes light up a bit but, I ignored it. I guess I had made the right decision to take her on. Maybe she would have some good come out of me training her. I ignored her happy face though and brought my mellophone to my lips for my warm-up exercises.

I guess she hadn't done as badly as I expected. I had hoped that she wouldn't show up or that she wouldn't have any knack for the horn at all. She had proven me wrong though. It had taken me much longer than her to even get half of the sound she had gotten today. One thing was for sure and that was that I would definetely be seeing more of her. I have to admit that I was honestly thinking about not teaching her again because she was in the orchestra but, she had passed every type of test I could think of to throw at her. She could have potential but, at the moment it was too soon to tell.

I put my french horn in its locker so I would be able to come and get it after practice. I locked it as habit remembering when I had left it unlocked in my frshmen year and then the upperclassmen had switched them all causing a great confusion. Especially for Larsson since it was his first year. Back then he was still soft on all of the trouble makers.

I walked into Larsson's office carrying my mellophone with me. I heard the voices of my friends discussing my new 'student' with Mr Larsson.

"Hey." I said, taking a seat on the floor. Robert took a moment out of the cadence he was drumming out on his binder to give me a mock salute before starting over again. This is what we usually did before practice when we had time... sit on the floor until Larsson was ready to not be lazy anymore and run practice.

"Hey Kevin." A voice that sounded like it had been painted over with sugar said, crawling over next to me. I rolled my eyes. It was Laureen, head of the frontline. She was probably the definition of band slut. She had a crush on a different boy every week and it was probably my turn to be crushed on. Too bad for her, she would definetely get the 'crushed' part out of crush if she wanted to like me. I wasn't going to fall for her tricks like every other boy in the band.

"Hey Laureen." I sighed, making it obvious I was uninterested in the seniors attention. Rob looked over at me as if I was nuts. Unlike him, I did not want someone who would end up leaving me after just one week. Sometimes I could swear someone had hit him in the head too hard with his drumsticks... especially when it came to girls.

"So who was the girl that you were in the back room with?" She asked. I figured she wanted to know so she could go and kill her. Not that there was anything going on between us that she would have to kill her for anyway.

"She's taking lessons from me." I told her simply, not wanting to give everyone the wrong idea. I think I made it worse though.

"I would like to take lesson's from you." Laureen said in a highly suggestive tone. That got everyone to raise their eyebrows and it made even Rob slip up on the cadence he was practicing. Not that it was really out of the ordinary for Laureen to say anyway.

"Let him be, Laureen." Cheryl said, from across the room next to Larsson's chair, "You're just embarassing yourself."

Thank God for Cheryl. She was one of those girls where what she said was final... no question. It made it hard to talk to her sometimes but, all in all she was a good person.

"So is the girl, Laureen, is talking about the one that came in here with the French Horn case?" Rob asked, resuming his practice.

"Yeah." Mr Larsson, answered for me. I hadn't known that she had come in here.

"She's _hot_." Rob said. He thought everyone was hot. "Do you want to try hooking me up with her?" Rob asked me hopefully, giving me a thumbs up and an extremely idiotic smile.

"She's not your type." I told him simply. I didn't really care if he dated her, I just needed her to focus on horn rather than Rob. The last thing I needed was her to be daydreaming about him during lessons... especially since I was already taking a lot out of my time to teach her the horn.

"Oh I get it. Working on putting your own moves on her. Don't worry I'll back off man." That was entirely not the point.

"No, man that is totally not it." I told him. Cheryl gave me a sympathetic look for Rob's idiocy and Laureen gave a little pout, obviously not taking Rob's words lightly.

"As interesting as the conversation is," Mr Larsson said sarcastically, cutting in, "We have to get to our practice."

Everyone was up grabbing their instruments. We walked down to the field together, with Larsson following close behind us.

I had the feeling this was going to be a long week.

* * *

AN: So what did you guys think? I still remember when I had to remember how to breathe right. It took me forever to figure out something so simple. It turned out I was concentrating too hard. lol. good time... good times. 

Well thank you for all of the reviews and I hope that you enjoyed the chapter. I'll have the next one up soon.


	7. The Sound of Improvement

AN: Sorry it took me so long to update. I've been really busy trying to fit in band camp and summer homework my school just gave me last week. All of the summer reading here is different then at my old school. : ( . Well anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter.

* * *

After my first lesson with Kevin things between us started to get better. He actually taught me some of the fingerings and gave me a short piece to learn... a _very_ short piece to learn. He kept a very cold attitude with me but, at least he showed some approval at my improvement... sometimes. 

After the first two weeks of playing French Horn my friends found it in their best interests to tease me over the condition of my lips which, had definitely begun to become chapped.

"O-ooohh... looks like someone has been kissing." Alice had said slyly, "Care to spill on who the lucky guy is."

Ben, who was busy trying to eat a hotdog and finish his Physics homework at the same time, did a double take looking over at me. All of the sudden I felt overly concscious about my lips. Were they really all that bad? I touched them gently and realised that Alice was right, they were blistered.

"Kissing?" Ben asked, sounding a bit hurt.

"No, I wasn't. They're- umm..." I stopped, trying to think up a good excuse for them. "They're just like that because I've been practicing and not paying attention to them..." Not exactly a lie but, it sounded really stupid to me and it must've sounded _extremely_ stupid to her.

She gave me a look that said she was not about to buy that explanation, "Yeah... _ri-ight_." She turned around to talk to Ben who was still giving me hurt expressions every two seconds. I ignored him and instead ate my lunch. I decided that I would ask Kevin for some extra chapstick at the end of the day.

* * *

Two interrogations by Alice, three speeches too many by Larsson, and one class later I was back in the practice room warming up, waiting for Kevin. 

He arrived shortly after I started practicing, carrying Larssons metronome and his Horn with a huge stack of music under his arm. He nodded his head at me and closed the door behind him.

"Did you practice the scales and look at the étude I gave you?" He asked, all business as usual but, looking as hot as ever.

"Yeah. It was all good up to the sixth measure and then I kind of had trouble getting the difference with the slurs and the separated notes." I told him, pointing to the trouble part in the étude sitting on the stand.

He took a moment from taking his horn out to look over my shoulders at the part. He didn't say anything just started to warm-up his instrument.

"Hmmm..." He said, letting me know he was at least thinking about my question and not comepletely ignoring it. "Okay for that part just think about it as water." I gave him a look that said 'what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about?'

"Just leave your horn here, we're taking a field trip." He said, taking my hand and guiding me to the music rooms sink that we had for who knew what reason. Mr Larsson was sitting at his podium looking at attendance records.

He looked up at us with curiosity, "Whatcha guys doing?"

"Apparently taking a field trip." I said, Kevin dropped my hand and turned on the sink.

"Actually I'm teaching her a lesson in tonguing." Kevin said, which sounded like an extremely sexual comment to me. I tried to hide a smile but, Larsson saw my amusement and smiled with me. Kevin, being the thick minded person he was, tried to pretend that he didn't know why we were smiling.

Larsson, who was now interested in what we were doing, slid off his chair to stand next to me, "I have to see this." He crossed his arms waiting for Kevin to show the effectiveness of his lesson.

"Okay so when you let air into the horn imagine it like a river." He said, looking at me to make sure I was paying attention. I nodded at him to continue, "You use your tongue to block the passage of air to make a new note." He took his finger and passed it under the water to show his point. "Each time you tongue it's a new note. You kind of use the back of your throat to force out a blockage point. You should feel it right here." He grabbed my neck with his fingers, letting droplets of water run down it. I flinched. I hated it when people touched my neck. He let go, taking no notice of my reaction and continued with his lesson. "When you slur the notes it's just like holding out one note but, you're moving your fingers to add more than one into it. Do you get it?" I nodded. His analogy was actually fairly easy to understand. Plus the whole slurring thing on Horn was basically the same concept as slurring on the cello. Kevin looked at Larsson to see if he wanted to add anything to it, he pursed his lips showing his approval.

"Good job." Larsson said, hitting him on the back, "_Now_ go show her how to do that."

* * *

By the end of our lesson I had somehow mastered the art of separating notes and going into slurs. Okay so I hadn't completely mastered it but, I had made progress. Apparently enough progress for Kevin to let me go onto the _seventh_ measure. 

"So Kevin?" I said, trying to break the icy wall that always froze over at the end of our lessons.

"Hmm?" He said, choosing not to look at me.

"By any chance would you have any extra chapstick?" He glanced my way not answering me. He dug through his horn case and threw a tube over. By some miracle I somehow caught it. I looked at it a bit skeptically wondering if he had used it before. "I haven't used it yet. You can keep it, I have a billion others."

"Oh okay... Thanks." I said, pocketing it. I grabbed all of the music and books that Kevin had stacked in a pile for me. He opened the door for me and then paused before continuing.

"Umm... I have a few band competitions for the next few days so I can't give you a lesson for a little while but, I'll call you when I'm free, okay?"

"Yeah sure... do you want to exchange cell numbers?"

"That'll probably make it easier to reach you." He said, thinking it over in his head. "Then I won't have to bother you in front of your friends."

Yep, he had totally grasped my concept of not letting my friends find out about Horn. At least he caught on about that faster than I was learning the instrument.

He dug into his pocket and pulled it out reading his number off to me fast, barely giving me enough time to write it down. He focused his light blue eyes on mine waiting for me to tell him my number. I stuttered a bit and then finally squeezed the number out somehow. He flipped his phone shut and we walked back into the band room where all of the other bando's were jumping around in excitement. Excitement of what... I don't know.

However, I found out quickly when someone shoved a picture of Larsson's head photo shopped onto the body of a young lady in a red bikini into Kevin's and my face. I looked over at Larsson's reaction. Besides the fact that he had the slightest tinge of embarassment somewhere on his features there was no sign that he was actually phased by this. I have to admit that I cracked up. This was probably the first interaction I had with the marching band that was somewhat aimed towards the positive side of our very screwed up relationship... well that they at least knew of.

The boy that I had seen the other day with drumsticks walked up to me, taking notice of my willingness to laugh and not be a complete prude.

"And who might this be?" He asked Kevin, giving him a wink, telling me he very well knew who I was.

"Fia this is Rob." He said, rolling his eyes at his friends behaviour. Rob took the drumsticks and stuck them in his back pocket so he could shake my hand. He had the stupidest grin on his face and he seemed to be overly cheery. I took his offered hand, wondering why exactly he was acting so weird.

"Be careful of him, he has major damage done to his brain from all of the times he's been hit in the head with his drumsticks." Cheryl said, tapping her head and walking up to Rob knocking his hand out of mine, which he had unwillingly been able to let go of. "What he's trying to say but, doesn't know how to is that he thinks you're hot and that he wants you to go out with him as soon as Kevin here, decides that he doesn't have a thing for you. I'd run away while you still can if I were you."

I didn't know exactly what to say to her but, something made me like the simple, blunt way she had of talking. I watched as Kevin frowned at her and Rob stuttered away, trying to take the damage she had done and turn it the other way around.

"I'm Cheryl, in case you're wondering." She told me. I already knew who she was from our many encounters but, still it was nice to get a proper introduction rather than the usual look of dissaproval she always seemed to be throwing my way. She wasn't so scary now that I seemed to be on her good side.

Her eyes looked me over with the highest level of scrutiny; They reminded me of the way Kevin had looked at me when Larsson told him I was taking up French Horn. It seemed like she was trying to find some quality that set me apart from the rest of my orchestra.

"It's nice to finally meet you." I told her finally, deciding that she and I would become friends. She gave me a small knowing smile that told me she knew more than I did.

" 'Need any help, _I'm_ here." She said, turning around and grabbing Rob by the shoulder and taking him with her before _she_ could embarass him anymore.

"Hey! Can't you see that she and I were having a conversation?" Rob reasoned with her.

"She's not interested." She said, with a commanding tone of finality. Her whole aura seemed to be teeming over with power that was both scary and amazing to see.

"Nice to meet you Rob." I said, trying to be polite.

"See? That is what I call being interested." Rob retaliated. Kevin rolled his eyes at his friends.

"You don't have to acknowledge him, y'know?" Kevin said, smirking. I looked over at him and the awkward conversation Cheryl had had with me about Kevin liking me and Rob waiting to make his move came back. That definitely made me feel a little uncomfortable and I could sense that Kevin was starting to feel that way too.

I decided not to say anything about Kevin's statement of not acknowledging Rob and instead excused myself to go get my cello. "Call me when you're ready to have our next lesson."

* * *

That night at about six-thirty I felt my cell vibrating across my bed. I grabbed it up thinking it was Alice wanting to talk to me. 

"Hello?" I said, wondering what Alice wanted to tell me.

"Hey." I was surprised when a very masculine voice came out my side of the phone. I took the phone from my ear in surprise to look at the caller i.d. It said...

"Kevin!"

I must've sounded completely shocked because he said, "Is it a bad time to call?"

"No-no! I'm fine. What did you need?" I stood up and started pacing around my room, a habit I had developed when I talked on the phone.

I heard him sigh on the other end. "I kinda put Larsson's music score in with all of your other music by accident."

My eyes darted over to the stack of music laying on my chair. "Wait I'll check... Does it have a title."

"No, it just had the date scrawled on the top of a thin white binder in Larsson's really crappy hand writing." He told me. I heard a voice shouting 'hey!' on Kevin's side of the phone and I figured that must've been Larsson's protest to what Kevin just said.

I started going through the stack throwing all of the music on my bed. I found it and waved it up in the air, for really no apparent reason, "Found it!"

"Great! I'm in the middle of practice right now but, is there anyway you can get it to me within the next fifteen minutes. I think Larsson is about to kill me." He said.

I chuckled a bit, "Yeah, no problem. I'll hitch a ride from my cousin. See ya soon." I said, hanging up the phone before he could say anything else. I ran down the hall to Eric's room still hugging the music to my chest.

I banged on the door, "Eric! Can you give me a ride to the school?"

"Why?" I heard Eric's muffled voice say.

"I need to drop something off with my teacher." I told him.

He opened the door holding his keys in his hand, "I didn't know teachers stayed this late."

"For sports they do." I told him.

"Okay let's go." He said.

We were in his truck and on the way to the school faster than I thought we would be. With the luck we had we would be down there in about ten minutes. Everything was completely silent, and it felt as if the silence would help us get to the school faster.

Eric pulled into the football fields parking lot and I jumped out to go find Kevin. I walked into the stadium to find all of the band in uniform. I stood to the side of the bleachers looking for Kevin. It was kind of hard to find him though when he blended in with the sea of black, gold, and red known as the band.

He was eventually the one to spot me however and ran off the field. He looked awesome in his uniform the black pants fitting him perfectly and the red and gold matching his hair. He took his hat off as soon as he reached me letting the black plume hit me in the face. I squinted my face trying to get a feather out of my mouth.

"Sorry."

"It's okay." I said, holding the binder out to him, "Here's the binder."

"Thank you." He leaned forward a bit to whisper, "I think Larsson was about to kill me."

I chuckled a bit, "Good thing I brought it then."

"Williams!" Larsson's voice carried out across the field so everyone could here, "Stop flirting and bring that to me!"

That made us both blush. "Coming!" He shouted impatiently at Larsson, he turned back to me and worded 'sorry' before walking back onto the field where the band stood trying to hide their snickers.

"Kevin." He turned around, walking backwards. "Where's your next performance?"

"Carter Hills High School at four o'clock on the field." He said, waving good bye to me.

I left laughing when I heard Larsson say to the band, "That's twenty push-ups for all of you for breaking attention!"

* * *

AN: Well I hope you liked the chappie. Tell me what you think R&R: ) Thank you! 


	8. The Sound of Beating Hearts

AN: Sorry I can't believe it has been so long since I have last written I had band camp and then school started and it just got totally crazy. I had a football game tonight though and it reminded me that I really needed to get onto this chapter at last. Well hope you enjoy!

* * *

That night after I had dropped the binder off with Kevin I found Rachael and my mom in the kitchen going over homework together. 

"Hey." I said, announcing my presence.

My mom looked up briefly from the grammar sheet they were going over to smile at me, "Hi honey."

I sat down at the table wanting to talk to her, "Is it okay if I get a ride from you after school tomorrow?"

"What for?"

"I was just wondering if I could go see the band competition at Carter Hills."

"What time?"

"Could you pick me up at school around 2:30?" I asked. She nodded her head to show me her approval.

* * *

The next day after school I waited outside the orchestra room for my mom. It was freezing. Winter was relentless when it came, letting the wind nip at my neck and ruffle my hair. It was a few weeks too early but, I had the feeling that snow would come soon. I wrapped my jacket more tightly around myself and blew into my hands trying to keep them warm. I pulled my scarf out, which had been in my cello case since our last winter concert. It was one of those things that you were just to lazy to get rid of. 

I have to say that the last few weeks before the snow comes have got to be my favourite. The leaves turn really pretty colours and then litter the ground so the janitors have more reason to curse. Awesome reason isn't it? No, it's not just that but, the fact that it starts to become just... really calm. _Although, _I have to say hearing the janitors curse is a pretty big bonus.

I stared at the falling leaves for a little while longer until the buses for the band came. That was probably the ultimate sign for the rest of the band to show up from random spots around the school. They were all smiling and really excited about their upcoming competition. All of the girls must have been chatting at about 2 billion words per second. They all completely ignored me though and walked by me into the music room to go and get Larsson.

I looked at my feet, hoping that my mom would show up soon. I felt so vulnerable sitting alone outside. Vulnerable to what? I really don't know.

I closed my eyes letting the wind gently caress my face. It felt nice and relaxing, taking some of my feelings of being vulnerable away.

"What are you doing?" I jumped about a mile and turned around quickly to see who was behind me. What did I say about vulnerable?

I put my hand over my chest and tried to catch my breath. "What the hell was that for Kevin?!" He stood behind me already in his uniform, something I was starting to see him in a whole lot.

"Well I thought that you looked so serene that it was worth bothering you just to see your reaction." He said, letting the edge of his mouth curl up into what I could almost call a smile... I think most people would call it a smirk though.

"That's not nice." I told him, frowning about how he had scared me. He stood very stiffly next to me, as if trying to find the right words to use before just blurting something out randomly.

"Do you mind if I join you?" He asked motioning to the empty part of the bench.

I shrugged, "Dunno why you'd want to but, sure." I slid over so I was close to the end of the bench nearest the music rooms door.

We sat in silence, neither of us capable of coming up with _at least _one thing to talk about. It was awkward and it was silent... I guess you could call that an _awkward silence_. After a few minutes of this _'awkward silence'_ I started to look up at the trees again. The light from the sun shone through it just right, giving it an ethereal appearance. For a moment I forgot where I was and just let myself forget the fact that my crush was sitting less than two feet away from me and I couldn't come up with one damn thing to talk about.

I finally thought of something, "I love the trees during this time of year." I mentally cringed. Okay, that may not have come out the same way that I was thinking it but, at least I wasn't talking about something like the weather.

"I like it too. " He said. Yes! Score one for me I came up with a conversation that he was able to relate to... even though we were talking about trees.

"It's just really peaceful." I said, the awkwardness beginning to come back. Yep, there it was.

_Cricket, Cricket _

"So this is your cello?' Kevin said more than asked. He reached out for the case and pulled it closer so he could play with the blue and purple pom-pom on the handle. At this point I was starting to get beyond nervous from him being here with me. I honestly didn't think I could last two more seconds before I made some kind of fool of myself.

"Shouldn't you be inside?" I asked, rather abruptly and randomly. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

"Do I make you nervous?" He asked, I screamed in my head _Yes_! but, didn't say it aloud. I decided not to reply to his question. Instead he answered mine, "The girls are changing inside and the boys are being idiots elsewhere."

"Are you sure you don't want to go and be an idiot with them?" I asked. If I could've hit myself I would've.

"Do you not want me here?" He asked, starting to get up.

"No!" I said, a bit too loud and just a bit too fast. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. At this point I was absolutely aware of how desperate I sounded.

He sat down again, confused at my weird behaviour. Instead of asking me though he started a new conversation completely.

"So what are you doing here." He asked, stating what I thought could be a rather solid conversation.

"I was thinking that I would come and see an actual performance rather than sneak into your practices." I said.

"You actually snuck into practices?" He smirked at me. "Besides the time I saw you out there of course."

"Your point?" That did it. He became silent again. At the moment I was trying so hard to not hint that I liked him that I felt like I was almost coming across as mean to him... or weird. One or the other. Or maybe even a combination of the two. I looked down at my feet and wiggled my toes as if they were the most interesting things in the world. I could feel him watching me.

Kevin saved it, "I think you'll like it. Marching is much more cool in performance than in practice. We're more into it."

"Well I'll definitely be listening for your solo." I told him, glancing away from my feet and up into his beautiful snow-blue eyes, that all of the sudden made me fell as if winter was here. I couldn't look away even though I _knew_ I was blushing and I knew that he knew I was blushing. Okay... now there was _no_ way that he could not know that I liked him.

He was the one to finally look away though and continue our conversation, "I don't think you really want to hear it."

"Why not?" I said, sounding shocked, "Your playing was the reason I even decided to try out a brass instrument."

"That's a silly reason." He said. That hurt a bit.

"Why should it be silly?" I asked defensively, "I liked the sound and wanted to try it for myself. There's nothing silly minded about that. "He was silent. I got the feeling that he probably couldn't see his own talent, "You're incredibly modest, you know? I bet you don't even like your own playing."

"I'll bet you anything you don't like your own playing on cello." He threw back at me.

He had hit that one right on the bulls-eye, "You've never even heard me play I bet."

"Doesn't mean that I don't know you're a good player. Larsson talks about you all of the time." He said.

"He talks about me?"

"Yeah, a bit."

We were both silent again. I saw Kevin shuffling his feet and playing with his fingers, as if it would start a conversation more easily. I realised we had never really talked outside of lessons before. Maybe this was why everything was so awkward between us.

I shivered a bit from the cold (meaning the rather weird moments we were having) and he must have taken notice because I felt him slide over towards me on the bench a bit more. I looked over at him and our foreheads bumped. That was incredibly stupid off me. He made a move to scoot backwards but, in the end didn't

"Sorry." I said, trying to move back but, finding no more bench to move back on. He must've had some alternative motive because he didn't say anything, just kept on coming closer, testing my reaction. I could feel his breath gently tickling my face, the smell of valve oil hanging above us. The thought kept on coming back that this was a little weird. I gripped the edge of the bench to support myself so I wouldn't be pushed over by him. I felt him place his rough hand on mine and his other one found the bottom of my chin lifting it up. His nose touched mine, his lips almost brushing my own but, before anything else could happen the band rooms door opened letting about a hundred kids, followed by Larsson, pour out. Kevin slid the other way from me, facing the opposite direction, and looked at his watch. I felt my cheeks turn hot pink and saw that his were doing the same.

"Come on Kevin! It's time to leave." Someone from the crowd yelled at him.

He shot up fast, "I have to go. I'll see you later." His voice held a tinge of nervousness in it.

I watched him leave feeling more confused than I had in a long time. Had he just been about to kiss me? And if he had how random would that have been?

I felt my cell phone ring and looked at the caller i.d. It was my mom. I gathered my stuff up and walked towards the parking lot away from the buses feeling extremely dazed.

* * *

The drive to Carter Hills was definitely not long enough. It did not give me any time to interpret what had almost happened back there. All I could think of the whole way to our rival school was how any of that could've happened. I had honestly believed that Kevin hated me. I mean I knew that he and I had grown gradually closer over the few weeks that he had been giving me lessons but, he had never really let his guard fall like _that_ before. Could it be possible that he actually did like me. 

My stomache did a few flips making my emotions really hard to understand. It was almost a bad feeling mixed in with... happiness?

My mom didn't really say anything to me the entire way but, she did check a few times to see why I was so quiet, followed by my short snappish voice telling her I was fine.

When we got to the school she told me to call her when it was over and then she left me alone to find my own way around Carter Hills. I'd only been here once or twice for one of Alice's basketball games and I had no idea where the field might be. I decided to follow the crowd of people that seemed to be weaving their way somewhere.

* * *

As soon as I got on the bus I made my way to the very back and sat next to Rob. I had somehow stuffed my mellophone on the carrier below and was now going to try and enjoy (?) the trip up to Carter Hills thinking about what the hell had just happened back there with Fia. I curled myself up with my knees resting on the back of the seat in front of me, which earned me a look from one of the freshmen flautists who was mad my feet were now jutting into her back apparently. I ignored her and turned my iPod's volume way up. 

The song 'What I've Done' started playing, making me feel even more guilty about what I _had_ done... or at least attempted to do back there with Fia. I angrily changed the song to the opener from our last year's band music. Yeah I know I am a band geek. Whatever.

All my thoughts were spinning in my head. Almost kissing back there was _not_ something we were supposed to do. Practicing was allowed, a relationship was not. She was in the orchestra and I was in the band. Does any of that really make a difference though? If I like her can't I just like her without having the pressure of our differences always being there? I mean we both love music so what should those differences be? On the other hand she really isn't one of us... yet. Damn it! Now I sound like one of those stupid cheesy soap operas... wait how do I even know what one of those is like? I don't think I'll answer that. I wonder if it's weird to be talking to myself like this?

I jerked around a little bit in frustration, having Rob look at me funny. I sighed as I saw Laureen making her way to the back of the bus. I didn't think that the day could get any worse. She slid into the seat across the aisle from me kicking one of the freshmen boys out. I couldn't believe that she _still _had a crush on me. I thought she got over everyone else after at most five days. I just ignored her turning the iPod higher... if that was even possible. I didn't feel like talking much.

The bus pulled out of the school parking lot and we were on our way. The first ten minutes were spent with me mentally beating myself up over Fia until I felt the eyes of everyone on the bus on me. I just looked away not really giving a crap that they were all staring at me. Two seconds later however, I felt Rob tap me on the shoulder and take the earphone out of my ear. One of the parent chaperones was at the front of the bus yelling at me to turn down the volume on my iPod before I blew my eardrums out of my head. As if her own voice wouldn't do that to everyone else's eardrums. Everyone was snickering. Was my iPod that loud that everyone could hear even from the front of the bus? I just shrugged and put them back in, getting caught up in the music again.

I couldn't let this get to me. I was going to have to deal with this through our competition until I got to see Fia again. At least she hadn't pulled back in disgust. In fact she had gone along with it.

I saw Cheryl give Rob a questioning look. They could think whatever. It wasn't really any of there business anyway.

* * *

I climbed up to the top of the bleachers and sat down. There were a billion parents scrambling around looking for the best spot to see their darling childs performance. I tried to get out of their way as best as possible and found a rather secluded spot that still gave me a good view of the stadium. I nodded my head at the man that I was sitting next to me. He was holding what I presumed to be his newly born child. He was rocking it back and forth in his arms trying to calm it down before the next performance began. He kept on glancing around as if waiting for his wife to come take over again. I chuckled quietlty to myself. 

I glanced at my watch and noticed it was two minutes to four. I looked around, trying to see if I could spot my school's band. Right as I was glancing around the announcers voice interrupted my search.

"Taking the field led by Drum Majors Alan Stady and Jake Sumners... W.J. Moris High School." That was them! I scanned around looking for my schools colours; black, gold and red. I didn't see them.

My search was stopped, however, when I heard the steady beat of a drum... no_ drums_ coming out onto the field. My eyes immediately locked onto them. I couldn't make out which plumed hat belonged to Kevin and I kind of doubted that I would figure that out. I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

* * *

As the band started to march off the field I went down to meet them at the field exit. I tried my best to spot Kevin under the hats of all the kids coming off the field but, they all looked alike. 

Cheryl saw me but, made no gesture to show that she had. I eventually spotted Kevin's face towards the back of the line and my stomache did a total back flip.

I watched the band walk into the distance to their buses. They all gathered around Larsson waiting for his few words of inspiration. At that moment I felt really left out and instead of joining their little group circle I wandered off to go and_ 'see'_ some of the other bands. I ended up watching our school's band enjoy themselves, from the distance, before they broke up to go and change. Can you say stalker?

I guess that the space was good though because I was definetely nervous to even see Kevin at the moment... especially since what had happened, or rather, what had almost happened at school. In a lot of ways I really didn't even want to talk to him tonight. I sighed knowing that my guts would not be coming back any time soon and that I wasn't ready to see Kevin. I pulled out my cell phone to call my mom and ask her to come pick me up. I had at least seen their performance.

As soon as my mom knew to come pick me up, which was probably a bit earlier than she expected, I made my way to the front of the school. I was almost around the corner when...

WHAM!!!

* * *

AN: This chapter did not come out exactly the way I wanted it to but, I've been beyond busy. My school just started and with that daily after school practices for my own Marching Band w00t! BTW... we have the tiniest little freshmnen Sousaphone player. She looks like she's nine. Nothing against her height though I wasn't much taller than her when I first started high school. Actually I'm still not that much taller lol. Hey there's nothing wrong with me. I'm proud of my height... all 5 feet 4 inches of it. Well R&R 


	9. The Sound of Disappointment

Author's Note: Sorry to keep all of my readers waiting. I have been overly busy with band and the beginning of our school's jazz ensemble : ) Well here is the long expected 8th chapter.

* * *

WHAM! 

I felt my breath being slammed back into my chest.

"Watch where you're going bitch." The guy that bumped into me said. I was shocked that he thought he had the right to say that to me.

"Excuse me?" I said incredulously, putting my hands on my hips. His cronies sensing the new found fun all circled around grinning and laughing.

"You heard me." He said, walking up to me so we were eye to eye and a little bit too close for my liking. I raised my hand to slap him after his last comment. He caught my wrist right as it was about to connect with his face and held it in his iron grasp. He twisted it a bit but, I refused to show any pain. "Ha! Girl's got guts." He passed me to one of his friends who grabbed me by my shoulders. At this point I was _livid. _No guy touches me without my permission... EVER!

The boys passed me between the five of them. Taking turns making retarded jeers towards me. I whipped around at them before I felt myself being pulled back into a pair of more secure arms. I looked up into Kevin's face where he looked a bit more pissed than he probably should have been. Rob who was right behind him stepped in front of the two of us and surprisingly started talking to them. Cheryl who was also there watched on in apprehension

"What's your problem Jeff?" He asked, addressing the boy that had bumped into me.

He looked at Rob with a lazy expression before responding, "We were obviously bored and she just happened to be there and apparently wanted to play with us." He said winking at me. I felt Kevin's grip on my arm tighten about tenfold. I whimpered a bit and he gradually let go.

"That didn't look much like playing." Rob said.

"Well of course you wouldn't know what playing looks like seeing as your drumline came in last at finals last year." I watched Rob's face heat over and I completely expected a fight to start out. Cheryl rushed forward and grabbed his shoulder before he could throw a punch. She gave him a pleading look that he surprisingly seemed to respond to.

Rob looked back at Jeff and the rest of his drumline and said threw gritted teeth, "You watch. We'll beat _your _drum this year."

"Big words from a first year drum captain." Jeff said, causing the rest of his section to laugh.

"We'll see." Cheryl grabbed his arm and pulled him back before the hot-headed boys could really get started.

The four of us walked back towards the eating areas. There were more people here and it felt all together more safe.

"What were you doing with those_ asses_?" Rob asked me.

"Minding my own business." I told him. He made it sound like I had chosen to hang around those jerks."I hope you beat them this year. What school are they from anyway?"

"They're from Lemont Creek High School." Kevin told me adding into the conversation. I nodded in response. That was when I realised that he had still not removed his gentle grip from my arm. Unlike Jeff, his touch was accepted.

There was a moment of silence between the four of us and this is when Kevin noticed that he was still holding onto me rather posssessively. He released me right away, and I saw a barely noticeable tinge of red touch his cheeks.

"Sorry." He apologised, which I thought was rather cute. I shrugged it off.

Cheryl and Rob watched us with funny looks on their faces, enjoying the entertainment that we gave them. Kevin added to their entertainment by touching my face with the tips of his fingers... which I found to be completely random. Kevin looked at Cheryl and Rob who were both grinning from cheek to cheek. Cheryl understood what Kevin wanted and dragged Rob by the shirt.

"Come on lets leave these two to themselves. They have obviously been waiting for a moment alone all night." Cheryl said, just trying to add on to our embarassment.

We watched them leave and as soon as Kevin was sure they were no where close by he looked back at me. Without any words he eagerly dragged me to a place where people couldn't watch us. I felt a mixture of feelings hit my stomach. There was excitement and fear and even a little bit of expectation. We stopped walking and Kevin pulled me into a small alcove. I looked up at his face. He was leaning into me for the second time in one day, which wasnt all that surprising. I could feel how close he was to me; hand to hand, leg to leg, mouth to...

Beep... Beep...Beep!

I looked at him with a very apologetic look on my face. He just backed away from me and put his hands in his pocket while I reached ino my jacket for _the interruption_.

"Hey mom." I said, taking the caller id into account. "Yeah. I'll be right there."

I hung up and looked over at Kevin. Everything became very awkward. The fact that it was my_ mom_ on the phone didn't help t he situation out either

"...Ummm... I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." I said.

"Yeah." I looked at him and sighed. He really was odd, one moment he would have my stomach completely tied in knots and the other half of the time he would act so distant towards me.

I started to run off to my mom's car trying to push my disappointment as far back in my mind as I could.

* * *

Kevin's POV 

When I got back to the bus it was already crowded with people throwing around our first place trophy from the award ceremony that I had not attended. I grabbed the first seat at the front seeing no open seats in the back.

I used my solitude to beat myself up mentally. I had a feeling that this would be a long trip home.

* * *

Fia's POV 

The warmth of my mom's car hit my face pleasantly as I settled in the front seat.

"So how was the competition?" My mom asked me.

"It was good."

"What place did they get?"

"Ummm..." I hadn't exactly stayed for the results, "I didn't find out."

* * *

Monday morning I got a text from Kevin as I was walking to class. It simply read: 

-Prac after skool?

I shuffled my books around in my arms until I could text him back.

-sure. c u then

* * *

I was waiting for Kevin in our usual spot in the back room my Horn out and ready. In some ways waiting was torture. I didn't want to see him and yet at the same time I wanted to see him more than anyone else. 

I looked over at the door as I heard the sound of a case hitting something in the other room. Seconds later Kevin shuffled into the room and smiled at me. I think that was the first time he had ever given me a full on smile.

* * *

By the end of practice the only thing that my lips had come in contact to was the cold mouthpiece of my French Horn. It was a bit of a let down but what did I expect... a hot make out scene with the boy of my dreams? Ha-ha I did _not_ just think that. 

Nope. Kevin was being entirely professional and instead he played the part of a gentlemen and held the doors for me as we left.

"So is your mom going to pick you up?" He asked me. I looked at him still half emersed in my daydreams.

"Huh?" I said, a bit dumbfounded.

"Is your mom going to pick you up?" He repeated.

"Ummm... ya." I thought and then it hit me... I hadn't called my mom to tell her I would be staying for a lesson! "Shit!"

Kevin looked at me with confusion, "What?"

"I'm sorry I have to go." I ran to the parking lot where I found my mom sitting in her car looking thouroughly pissed off.

I smiled at her sheepishly but, she just frowned back at me. I climbed in slowly waiting for the bomb to go off.

"I'm sorry." I said trying to sound as apologetic and small as I could, "I totally forgot."

"Okay listen, Fia. I do not understand what is going on with you lately. I have not heard you play one note from your Cello at all in the past few weeks. Not one. That is not like you at all." She started, and I had a feeling I knew exactly where this was all going. "I didn't mind at first that you stayed after school for lessons but, when you seriously start to slack off and then_ fail_ to tell me that your lessons are changing to Monday's it makes me a little bit mad. The other night when I took you to the performance you told me that you would be in the parking lot waiting for me and instead I wait around for twenty minutes before I finally decide to call you."

I cringed openly, it was all starting to sound bad on my part.

"I'm sorry mom, next time..." I tried.

"No!" She said with a bit of force, which kind of shook me. My mom never raised her voice... _ever_. "There will not be a next time. I do not want you to continue with the French Horn anymore."

"Mom!" I tried to protest. "That's not fair."

"It's not fair having me wait out here for you." She threw back at me. That made me feel really guilty. She looked at me and softened her gaze a bit."Listen Fia. We have invested a lot into your Cello, hoping that you would become great someday. It's our last chance for something big to happen. I need something in return from you now. The moment your father left was the day you needed to grow up." I looked at her extremely mad.

I ignored her comment about my father, "Why can't I be great at the French Horn?" I asked, already knowing it was an unreasonable question. It wasn't that I did not like playing Cello it was just that playing French Horn was a new experience.

"No more. I want you to return it to Mr Larsson tomorrow and thank him for considering you as a possible prodigy." She said. I felt my eyes tearing. Why did it all have to end? It wasn't fair. I really enjoyed making all of the new friends and meeting Kevin.

Kevin.

How could I face Kevin? No I wouldn't do that... especially not after all of the work that he had done to help me start on the French Horn.

* * *

I regretfully dragged my horn into Larsson's office the next day. I set it on his desk gently not wanting to hurt it in any way. He looked up at me a little bit skeptically. 

"Is there something wrong?" He asked me. I just shook my head not able to say any words. It wasn't fair.

"Did you break it?" He asked me.

"No. Take it back." I said shortly.

Larsson looked at me as if I had gone crazy.

"What?"

"You heard me." I said, pissed off at myself more than him.

"Why?" He asked. Some tears spilled over. Why was I getting so emotional?

He looked at me steadily waiting for my answer. I finally got it out. "My mom said I had to. She told me to say thank you but, that I can't accept it."

"Is she worried about the money?" He asked. I shook my head.

"No she's just mad at me in general." He sighed and lay it down beside his desk.

"Okay then I guess I'll return it." He told me.

I turned to leave and found Kevin looking at me with shock written all over his face. No it wasn't just shock, there was so much to read from his face; anger, betrayal... sadness?

"You're quitting." He said, through gritted teeth.

No response.

"I can't believe you. I put all of these hours in for you just trying to help you. I didn't ask for any pay at all and now you're just giving in! I was right about you, you are just a snobbish orchestra kid." He said, looking at me with shock more than hate.

"Shut up." I told him barely audibly. "You wouldn't understand." The tears flew down my face more easily now. Larsson watched all of this from the comfort of his office chair.

Kevin looked at me a bit surprised. I didn't give him a chance to say anything else I pushed past him and out the orchestra rooms doors. I ignored the fact that he tried to reach out and pull me back as I left and just kept on going. I was so mad. I thought that we had gotten past the fact that I was from the orchestra and he was from the band.

* * *

Okay yeah I know... pretty cheesy right. At least you didn't see that coming. Well anyway some of the references to her father will be introduced more properly later on and also Fia's mom's reasons for getting rid of the french horn will become more blatant soon. I promise you those dumb reasons up there were not the only reasons. Well I hope that you liked that chapter and that it wasn't too much of a let down after not having written in _for-ever!_ Sorry you know how stressful band season can get. Well R&R 


	10. The Sound of Falling Snow

* * *

AN: So it has been forever since I last wrote... I'm sorry. It's been really busy... especially with the college stuff and everything. Sorry!

* * *

I didn't speak one word to my mother on our drive home from school. I was mad at everyone; my mom for taking away something I enjoyed, Larsson for tempting me with something I couldn't have, Kevin for turning against me and most of all I was pissed off at myself. How could I have let myself get attached to something? It wasn't fair.

All sorts of thoughts swam through my mind that just left me wanting to scream at somebody. It wasn't fair.

As soon as I saw the front of my house from the end of our street my seat belt was off. We pulled into our driveway and I was out before the car had even stopped. I slammed the front door of my house and ignored the looks Eric sent me from the kitchen.

"Good day then?" He asked sarcastically.

I rushed off to my room, obviously not wanting to talk.

I spent the rest of the night in my room, not paying attention when my mom knocked at the door to tell me that dinner was ready and when Rachael finally came to bed I was already 'asleeep'.

* * *

A few weeks passed by normally and before I knew it Larsson was on his podium announcing that our winter concert was this friday.

The only word that came to mind was fuck! Exactly one week until the concert!

That meant that I would have to see Kevin again, even after I had spent so much time and effort avoiding him. I cursed quietly under my breath which did not go unnoticed by Mr Larsson who gave me a knowing look before continuing. I was grateful to him because he had not mentioned the whole French Horn thing to me again after I returned it to him.

'So today I really need you guys to focus. We have two days left until we have to go and perform in front of your parents...and probably blow... so ya.' You could tell that Larsson was completely not himself. Rather, he was himself but in a 'I'm-tired-so-don't-fuck-with-me' type of way.

I sat back in my chair preparing myself for a long rehearsal where Larsson would only contribute to the drama that makes up the basis of orchestra class.

* * *

I left class that day in just as bad of a mood as Larsson was... and it wasn't made any better when I saw Rob and Kevin screwing around with a tennis ball in front of the bandroom. They were probably freezing their asses off in the falling snow... which kind of made me happy in a perverse way.

Seeing him made me grow warm with anger. I tensed and stood behind the tinted door and just watched him, while trying to figure out the best plan of escape. Maybe it would be best to just walk by and pretend like I hadn't seen him. Even though it had been three weeks since I stopped playing Horn, I could still see the look of anger Kevin had given me... and that's what pissed me off. He hadn't given me a chance to explain or anything, he just automatically turned against me.

A reasonable part of my mind argued that he had tried to stop me from running away from him but, another part of me wanted to hate him just to make things easier on myself.

I must've stood in front of the door for a while because I realised that everyone that had been in my class had already left. I shrugged a bit and just stood there waiting for the perfect moment to escape.

"You know, you could just try talking to him again." I jumped a mile and turned to find Larsson behind me with a stack of music in his arms. Why did he always have to sneak up on me?

I scoffed a little before replying, "I'm not talking to_ him_ again. I have my pride."

"And so does he." Larsson sighed. He shifted the music a bit to make it lay more comfortably.

"Do you want some help?" I asked. It wasn't as if I really had to be anywhere. My mom was working until late and I still hadn't found the oppurtune moment to pass Kevin.

"That would be nice. It's just some sheet music that I lent out to Lemont Creek ages ago. It just has to be filed." He said, sounding less stressed then he had earlier.

He dumped the load into my arms and reached into his pockets for his keys. While he unlocked the door to the music library I took one last secret glance at Kevin. When I turned to follow Larsson I noticed he was holding the door waiting for me to come with a smirk on his face. Had he seen my look at Kevin? Duh! Of course he had and now I was blushing. Dammit! I tried to walk by him with my head held high but I knew and _he_ knew who I had been looking at.

When he closed the door behind us I waited for him to make some sort of stupid comment but he didn't. Instead he took the music from my arms and laid it on one of the tables.

"Ok so these go in the band section and these go in the orchestra section." He told me, even though I already knew where everything went seeing as I spent hours in the library looking through the music.

I looked at the first piece titled, 'Dancing Shrimp'. I couldn't help but smile... I mean come on, what kind of name is _Dancing Shrimp_?

* * *

Larsson and I had been in the library for quite a while before I finally got up the nerve to ask him a question.

"Did you hate the orchestra as much as the band kids here do when you were younger?"

He was slient for a little while before he answered.

"Well first of all I still am young but to get to the point of your question yes." He told me. "They were obnoxious snots."

I turned away from his look.

"That is until I went to college and started to actually meet with some of the people in my classes who just so happened to play instruments of the string variety." He smiled at me. "Why are you asking me this?"

"I was just wondering." I said, trying to keep the true reason to myself.

Another pause.

"You were wondering if there was any chance of you getting along with Kevin again, weren't you?"

"No!" I said, a little bit too defensively. I knew he knew the truth so I joked with him a little bit. "Besides what would a snobbish orchestra girl want to have to do with the band?"

"I don't know... then again I wasn't the one that picked up the French Horn secretly." He said, giving me a smirk. That made me blush.

"Okay so maybe I did, what of it?" I said. He just shook his head and laughed.

I had walked over to the opposite side of the room near the filing cabinets when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.

"Hello?" I said, putting my ear to the receiver.

'_Hey honey. I'm in the parking lot waiting for you.' _My mom's voice said, from the other side of the line. '_It's starting to snow pretty hard so I want to get home as soon as we can.'_

"Okay, I'll be right there." I told her, hanging up.

"I have to go Larsson. My mom's waiting for me." I told him.

"Okay I'll see you on monday."

"Don't stay too long, she said that the snow is coming down pretty hard." I told him.

"Sure thing."

I grabbed my stuff and took a deep breath before heading out of the band room into the cold. Kevin's eyes met mine for a moment as I passed him but, I made sure to ignore him as best I could... and he did the same.

* * *

Kevin's POV

I watched her ignore me as she left the bandroom. Her feet crunched through the dirty snow leaving footprints that later served as the only reminder that she actually had walked past me. The fact that she had just ignored me was a slap in the face colder than that of the crisp air of winter. I really did regret yelling at her... especially when she gave me a genuine look of hurt after I said those things to her. I guess I did deserve to be ignored like that.

The tennis ball that Rob and I had been throwing back and forth at each other suddenly connected with my arm and I remembered that Rob and I were still playing.

"Heads up." He shouted too late for it to have any effect on me.

"A little bit late for that, don't you think?" I said, still watching Fia's retreating form. Rob shrugged.

"What was that about?" Rob said, in regards to the exchange Fia and I had just had, or rather the lack of one.

"She's angry with me." I told him. Rob gave me a weird look. I hadn't exactly told him about what had happened.

"I thought that I hadn't seen her around as much but I didn't know you guys were mad at each other. What about our last competition? You guys were making googly eyes."

"Well she quit, I guess I was a little bit harder on her than I should've been and she ran off." I explained.

"What?! I didn't know Fia did that." He basically yelled. What made it worse was that Larsson was locking up the bandroom just as he said it.

"Talking about Fia now, are we?" Larsson said, walking over to join our conversation.

"I didn't know she quit." Rob said.

"Yeah, she had issues at home." Larsson told us, giving me a look which made me feel even more like an asshole than I already did.

"I didn't realise..." I grumbled. "She won't talk to me now."

"Well that's because you wouldn't let her talk the first time." Larsson said.

"You screwed up on that one dude." Rob said, not making anything better.

"I really want to make things better."

"Then maybe you should try to apologise." Larsson threw out.

"How am I supposed to apologise if she won't talk to me?" I asked

"Have you actually tried confronting her, because she's obviously not going to come to you." Larsson asked, which made me feel kind of stupid.

"No-" I started.

"Well there's your problem. She probably wants to talk to you... just doesn't want to be the one to talk to you first." Larsson said, slapping me on the back, "Don't stay out too long boys it's starting to come down harder."

He left us standing out in the snow with new possibilities to consider.

"Looks like you have a problem to deal with now." Rob said, before we both headed off towards my car.

* * *

Fia's POV

That night at dinner I brought up the subject of my concert.

"Mom?"

"Yes?" She replied, looking up from her soup.

"My concert is this friday and I was wondering if you could make it?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Oh honey... I can't. If I don't stay at work I'm going to lose my job." She told me, well it was worth a try. I looked at Eric next.

"I can't either. I'm sorry. I was going to take Rachael up to Long Isle for the weekend." He told me, I remembered him mentioning something about that now.

"Okay cool." I told them.

"Are you going to have a ride back home after the concert?" My mom asked.

"Yeah, I'll ask Ben or something." I told her. Alice wasn't even going to be able to make it to our concert so I knew I wouldn't be able to get a ride from her, so all that was left over was Ben.

* * *

The next morning I found Ben outside our math class.

"Hey dude, I was wondering if I could get a ride home from you after our concert." I asked, deciding not to dally on the question.

"Yeah sure. I don't really want to hang out too long afterwards though if you don't mind." He said.

"That's perfect." I said, smiling at him.

* * *

Friday came more quickly then I wanted it to. I stayed after school seeing as I didn't really have anywhere else that I could go. I had all of my concert clothes in a bag and I was completely ready for the concert. Now all I had to do was wait another five hours until it started.

I was hanging out in Larsson's office just browsing on the computer. Another one of his students had gone out to buy food for Larsson and she had agreed to bring me some too so now I was sitting and eating a hamburger with extra cheese. Larsson sat looking at judging scores from one of the band competitions that they had gone to. He would let out small sighs or ruffle his hair every now and then which let me know that he wasn't particularly happy with some of the judges comments.

That was basically my afternoon until people started showing up for the concert. Larsson literally kicked me out of his office and sent me to go and get dressed around 6.

I wore the same concert black dress that all the girls had to wear except mine had a slit up the right side to make it easier to play cello with a dress on. I actually let my hair down for once too. It was to keep my neck and shoulders warm but it actually looked kinda nice too, which I guess was an added bonus.

I bumped into Ben on the way back to the band room. He was wearing his tuxedo which was typical concert dress for all of the guys.

"Wow... you look nice." He told me gripping the tips of my hair inbetween his two fingers.

I just gave him a funny look, "Thanks" I told him unsure about his compliment. I wasn't going to lead him on.

Larsson called into the room from his office that we should all have our instruments out and be tuning and that we were going on in ten minutes.

The orchestra's always went on first and then the band followed right after. Larsson always tried to make the concerts as short and painless as he possibly could for the parents but, personally I believed that he was just trying to make everything short and painless for himself. I mean what hurts more than two out of tune piccolo's? Trust me... nothing.

Ben and I hurried to find our instruments and do any last minute tuning adjustments to the strings. As we were tuning I watched Ben out of the corner of my eye. There was something strange. He kept on giving me odd looks that definetely made me uncomfortable. When he realised I was watching him he smiled at me and I gave him a weak smile back.

"Let's go." He said, grabbing his instrument and my arm and lead me to the theater where the rest of our orchestra were already waiting. Mr. Larsson was giving his usual speech up on stage and we were all waiting for him to finish so we could take our seats.

When we heard our cue to come on stage Ben gave my arm a last squeeze, which felt more possessive than reassuring to me, then we all made our way onto the stage. My stomach was doing back flips and not the good kind. It wasn't from nervousness it was from the weird way Ben had been acting. Sure he liked me and he let everyone know on a regular basis but he never actually took action. However, I decided to put it out of my head for the moment so I could concentrate on playing.

The concert felt like it spead by. All of the work we had put into the music had been played within ten minutes. Ten intense minutes by the way... just to let you all know. Larsson had all of his section leaders stand up to take a bow and then the rest of the orchestra and then we were all basically carted off the stage to make way for the band.

As we passed by the bandies, making our way to the theater's seats to watch the band people perform, each group started making rude jeers at one another... personally I was indifferent. I walked next to Ben who had caught up with me rather quickly. I watched him walk slowly which made me walk slow as well. As soon as he was sure there was no one left backstage with us he turned his gaze to me and that was when I realised that there was something wrong.

"B-ben?" was all I could say. He set his violin and my cello on one of the prop tables the drama club used for their plays and then started backing me into a corner.

"Shhh." He said, getting closer to me. He pushed my hair out of my face. He leaned in and started sucking at the base of my neck. I began to shiver under his touch, afraid of what he could do.

"Stop it." I tried using my strength to push him off me but, he used his body weight to hold me against the wall.

"You know you want it." He said, continuing to kiss me. What was wrong with him? This wasn't the Ben that I knew.

He tried to go for my mouth next but I bit his lip instead. He slapped me across the face.

"Don't do that again!" He whispered harshly. I felt tears begin to prickle at the corner of my eyes.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked. "Leave me alone."

This time he covered my mouth with his and bit at my lip brutally trying to get me to open my mouth for him. I just stood against the wall stiff as a board, completely defenseless. He started feeling up my side and touched my thigh through the slit in my dress. I struggled against him trying to get his mouth off mine so I could call for help. All I could mutter were the words 'STOP' which were smothered by his unwelcome mouth.

The next thing I knew his weight was being pried off me. I heard a loud smack as someone's fist connected with Ben's nose and then the boy grabbed my arm and cello and pulled me out of the theater into the snow outside. He dragged me into Larsson's office where we hid under his desk away from the eyes of people. I felt like crap and I was completely shocked that Ben would try something like that on me. I looked up to see who my rescuer had been and was surprised to see Kevin's worried face looking down at me. That's when the tears started falling.

Kevin tried to pull me closer but, I scooted back and freaked, "Don't touch me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you." He calmly reassured me.

He waited a few seconds before he wrapped me up in his arms and pulled me closer to his chest. He stroked my hair lightly which was ten times more comforting than when Ben had touched it. Even if something inside me told me to be mad at him, the fact that he was sitting under Larssons desk with me, comforting me and holding me showed that he really did care for me somewhere deep down... despite our fight. I shook lightly as I muffled my sobs into his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He asked, as my sobs began to die down.

I looked up at him. There was a soft look in his eyes; nothing that told me he thought I looked like crap though... there was just a nice tinge of sympathy.

I nodded my head. I rested my chin on his shoulder again. He really did smell nice... and I had to admit he looked amazingly handsome in his tuxedo.

He held me quietly, whispering reassuring phrases into my ears every now and then. It was really nice to have Kevin there caring for me again.

When the band finished their part of the concert everyone scrambled back into the bandroom to collect their cases and go home but, Kevin and I just stayed under the table in a comforting embrace. Larsson eventually came back into his office and found us under his table. He was just about to ask us what the hell we were doing under there when a person walked into his office.

"Have you seen Fia? I was supposed to give her a ride home." Ben's voice rang out through the office and I stiffened. Larsson was just about to answer when Kevin grabbed his foot and shook his head rapidly.

"No. I'm sorry Ben I haven't seen her. What happened to your nose by the way?" He asked, walking towards Ben so he was being pushed out of the office.

"Nothing." He said quickly, and then changed the conversation again, "Are you sure you haven't seen her? I could've sworn I saw her with one of those asshole bandies." I felt Kevin tense against me. If I hadn't been holding him I'm sure he would have jumped out at Ben and beaten him up again.

"I'm positive Ben." Ben let out a loud sigh before he stalked off.

I heard the door click shut as Larsson closed it. He went onto his hands and knees so he could be face to face with us.

"What's going on?" He asked, with a harsher than usual voice, "Why weren't you on stage?"

He was looking at Kevin and then his eyes softened when they met my face.

"What happened Fia?" He asked.

I choked a little when I tried to tell him so Kevin spoke for me, "I caught Ben basically trying to rape her behind stage."

Larsson's eyes grew cold again. "That is unacceptable! I can't believe he would do something like that. We should file a report right away."

"NO!" I yelled at Larsson, shocking both him and Kevin, "I don't want people to know and think I'm weak."

Larsson looked at me softly, "That's not going to happen."

"Still I don't want you to."

Larsson sighed, "Ben said he was your ride home, is that true?"

"He was until he did this." I told Larsson.

"Where's your mom?"

"She's working the graveyard shift tonight." I explained.

"How are you getting home then?" Larsson asked.

"I can give her a ride." Kevin said, butting into our conversation. "That is if it is okay with Fia."

Larsson gave me a look asking me if it was okay, "Yeah sure, it's fine with me."

"I think that'll work out for the best." Larsson said. "You guys can stay in here for as long as you need but I am going to go and talk with the head of the district's music department."

"Nahh, that's okay... I think we'll head out now." I told him, "I just need to put my cello away."

"Okay, then I'll walk you guys out." Larsson said.

Kevin and I crawled out from under the table and I grabbed my stuff and we headed off to Kevin's car. It was snowing harder than it had been earlier now and it was freezing. Larsson gave me a hug and told me to call him if I needed anything. Kevin helped me into the front seat and we were off. The snow outside had begun to fall more heavily making for a slower drive to my house. At first Kevin and I only spoke if he needed to know when to take a certain turn, but as we got farther along to my house Kevin began to talk to me.

"Fia?" I heard him say almost cautiously.

"Hmmm?"

"I'm sorry." He said. That was all he had to say.

"It's okay." I told him, "I'm sorry too."

"For what?" He asked, "I was the asshole, not you."

"I should've explained to you that I was quitting."

"Well I didn't exactly give you a chance." He said. It was silent for a few minutes.

"Are we cool then?" I asked.

"I think we are." He replied. He took his eyes off the road for a second to look at me.

When we pulled into my driveway Kevin opened the door for me and walked me to my front porch. At this point it was snowing pretty hard and it was freezing. The wind and snow whipped at us biting at our cheeks. We both ran for the shelter of my house.

As soon as I opened the door we poured in tracking slush all over the floor. Our teeth chattered loudly.

I was the first to speak, "I think you should stay here for a while until the snow storm dies down."

"It doesn't look like it's going anywhere for a while so I think I should leave."

"Don't be stupid, it's too dangerous right now." I retaliated. He looked at me in consideration.

"Okay... but only until I can dry my clothes." He agreed. It was at this point that I noticed he was shivering and so was I.

"Here take your coat off put it on the heater over there. I'll go and find you some warm clothes to change into." I said, while walking to Eric's room. I'm sure he would understand if I let Kevin borrow his clothes.

As I was walking back I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen. I ran to answer it and shoved the clothes into Kevin's arms.

"The bathroom is in my room... first one on the right." I said pointing down the hallway. I picked up the reeceiver, "Hello?"

_'Hi honey, it's mom.'_ The voice from the other end said.

"Hey."

_'Listen, it's snowing really hard right now and I'm not going to risk driving all the way from work to our house tonight. Your aunt lives about a block away from my work so I'm going to stay there for the night.'_

"Okay." I said, looking out the window. True to my mom's word the snow was gradually intensifying. "Be safe mom."

_'You too honey.'_ She said, 'Oh umm... I haven't exactly had the heater fixed yet so if you go into the garage there are little mini heaters that you can put in your room.'

"Okay. I know where they are."

_'Good. Well I love you and I guess I'll see you sometime tomorrow. Bye.' _

"Bye mom. Love you too." I hung up, and turned around hearing Kevin walking towards me.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." I said, back to him. I put the fact that the snow was coming down harder out of my mind.

"I hope you don't mind but, I hung my clothes up in your bathroom."

"No problem." I said, waving it off, "If you want you can have something to drink. I could put on the water right now."

"Sure." He shrugged, "That sounds good".

I turned on the stove and set the water to boil. Kevin leaned against the counter watching me scramble around for different items.

"Do you want anything to eat?" I asked. I was personally very hungry.

"Depends on whether or not you're eating too." He said.

"Yeah, I'm starved." I told him, "What do you want?"

"Whatever is easiest for you to make."

"Hmmm... how about hot dogs?"

"Sounds good." He told me, as I got out our frying pan, "Here, how about you worry about the water and I'll cook the hot dogs."

"It's really no trouble." I told him.

"It's okay, I like doing it." I reluctantly gave up the frying pan and handed him a fork and the hotdogs. I watched him flip them around until they were a dark crispy colour.

When everything was ready we took the food to the couch and turned on the tv. We flipped through the channels until we found a show we both agreed on. It was nice to sit next to Kevin and just relax. I had gotten us blankets to share and we began to totally lose track of time.

The show we watched was in the middle of a stupid joke when everything in the house went dark. I jumped a little before getting up. I stumbled over one of Rachael's stupid toys before righting myself again.

"You okay?" Kevin asked, satnding up next to me.

"Yeah." I walked around a bit, "Shit the powers off."

"Well no duh." He said, laughing a bit at my comment.

"I knew it was I just didn't want to jynx us or anything." I told him. I walked into the kitchen where I knew my mom kept candles and matches and a few flashlights stashed for situations just like this.

I lit a candle and set it in the middle of the kitchen, letting it illuminate my face. Kevin was over by the window looking out.

"Ummm... Fia..." He said, I walked up next to him, "I don't think I'm going home tonight.

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AN: Wow I think that this was my longest chapter yet. Well I hope you enjoyed it and please read and review! :)


	11. The Sound of Disbelief

AN: I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last update. I finished this chapter a few months back but I just didn't know how to end the chapter. I'm sorry I've had you waiting and I hope you enjoy.

Well here's the next chapter! Just a warning this chapter's rating is T+ for some stuff. Nothing explicit and no lemons. Sorry I don't write those. Still I felt like I should give you some warning. Well enjoy the chapter!

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"Ummm... Fia..." He said, I walked up next to him, "I don't think I'm going home tonight."

I looked out the window and wasn't exactly surprised to see the snow building up to the bottom of it.

"No I guess you're not." I said.

"You don't mind do you?" He asked, I gave him an odd look.

"Why would I mind it's not like it would change anything if I did." I told him, giving him a smile, "I'm going to go and see if I can find more blankets for when we do go to sleep."

As soon as I spoke the word _sleep_ I felt a weird tension grow between us.

"I-I can help you look for them if you want." Kevin offered.

"Nahh, it's okay, it'll only take me a few seconds. If you want you can find a card deck in one of the drawers over there and we could play for a while." I offered.

I went into my mom's room and then Eric's gathering their blankets for the night. I piled them up on my bed and then went back out to Kevin carrying two extras.

I draped one over Kevin's head as he dealt out the cards.

"Hey!" He said, grabbing the blanket from off his face.

"So what are we playing?" I asked, curling myself up into my blanket.

"Poker." He told me, passing my cards over to me.

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After about fifty games of poker, those of which I lost forty-nine, Kevin and I decided it was time to turn in for the night. We groggily walked back to my room, occasionally running into a wall. I made sure to turn all of the switches off in the house so if the power came back on the lights wouldn't be turned on too.

"Where do I sleep?" Kevin asked me.

"You can sleep in my bed and I'll take my sisters." I told him, pointing to my bed

I walked over to my closet and started digging through my underwear drawer looking for a pair of suitable pajamas. I had never had a _sleepover_ with a boy, much less had one sleep in the same room with me, and all of the sudden I felt more self conscious. As soon as I found pajamas that I found suitable enough for the eyes of the male presence sitting on my bed I headed into the bathroom to dress.

I threw on a pair of sweatpants with one of my tanktops. I took about another five minutes in the bathroom wondering whether or not I should wear a bra to sleep. Part of my mind said yes because Kevin was there but then another half of me said no because it would be completely uncomfortable. The comfort aspect of my mind eventually won over and I took it off throwing it into one of my drawers, not wanting Kevin to see it. I brushed my teeth quickly and then went out to meet Kevin.

My mouth dropped open when I saw him. He was sitting on the edge of my bed playing with a necklace that lay on my night stand with his shirt off and just a pair of boxers on. He looked amazing! As soon as he saw me his face lit up.

"You look nice." He commented.

"You can't even see me." I told him back but, in my head I was thinking the same thing about him.

"Sure I can."

I changed the subject, "Aren't you cold?"

"Nahh... whenever I wear a sweater under the blankets I get overheated." He told me. I just shrugged.

I peeled the blankets back and sunk under them. I wrapped them around me until only my eyes were peaking out from the covers. Kevin followed suit and then laughed when he saw me staring at him from under my covers.

"You look scary with just your eyes showing." He told me.

"Thanks for the compliment."

"No problem." He grinned back at me.

"Did you ever tell your parents where you were?" I asked.

"I texted them while you were in the bathroom telling them I was staying at a friends house to wait out the storm... I just didn't tell them that the friend was a girl."

"Would they freak if they knew?" I asked.

"Hmmm... Probably not... Just as long as I don't get you pregnant or something." He said, giving me a stupid look. The idea of him getting me pregnant made me shiver. He rushed on before what he said could get awkward between us. "I'm still not telling them though. What about you?"

"What?" I asked confused, "Oh you mean my mom? She would probably have a cow if she knew you were here but then she would get over it as soon as she realised the situation. She might castrate you however but that's just the way my mom is." I told him snickering. I watched as he curled up a little bit at the idea.

"Ouch." He said.

"You know I'm kidding right?" I asked.

"Yeah but, still the idea hurts."

"Don't be such a baby." I teased him.

"Oh shut up."

I wrapped myself in the blankets and let off a loud yawn, arching my back and hitting my sisters headboard all at once.

"Tired?" He asked.

"Yep."

"We should try to rest." He said, I watched as he tried to make himself more comfortable in his bed and then the sound of crinkling sheets stopped and all was silent... except for the wind howling and the leaves from my bushes scraping on the outside of my window. I never did like the sound. I tried to fall asleep but I found that knowing Kevin was there, sleeping in my room, was just a little unnerving.

I tried focusing on something else... and it just had to be on how cold the room seemed to be all of the sudden. I felt my teeth begin to involuntarily chatter in response to the cold air that was somehow seeping from outside into my house. I tried muffling the sound of my chattering teeth with my pillow so Kevin wouldn't hear but apparently he did.

"You're not asleep are you?" He whispered.

"What do you think?" I whispered back.

"I guess not." He sighed, "Come here. You'll be warmer." He lifted his covers to invite me under them. I hesitated... no matter how... unanimalistic Kevin seemed he was still a boy. I pushed all the thoughts out of my head and reasoned with myself that he was just trying to help keep us warm. I finally grabbed the pile of blankets that were on my bed and dragged them over to where Kevin was. I quickly dove under his covers and spread the extra blankets I brought with me over him as well, my teeth chattering uncontrollably the whole time. As soon as I had all of the covers place over us snugly I brought my arms under the covers and started shivering ucontrollably

"Brrrrr!!" Was all I could manage to say. I felt Kevin's hands start to rub my arms fast in an attempt to keep me warm.

"You're feet are freezing just to let you know." He said, smiling at me. I moved them away from his. "It's okay, they'll get warm in a minute."

I suddenly felt awkward with him so close to me and I stiffened up, feeling extremely self conscious... I mean he was just wearing boxers and I was wearing a tanktop, which to me felt more revealing then I thought it would. Feeling me stiffen against him Kevin stopped rubbing my arms.

"Did I do something wrong?" He asked.

"No." I said breathing a little heavily, out of nervousness.

"It's okay just relax." He said. I felt myself let out a breath of air that I hadn't realised I had been holding and then I felt his hands grip my arms and he pulled me to his chest. We were silent again for a few moments. I placed my hand on his stomach so I wouldn't be rubbing up against him. The side of my face rested on his bare chest and I could feel his heart rate speeding up gradually from my contact.

"I can't go to sleep." I said, nuzzling the top of my head in the crook of his neck. He cautiously wrapped his arms around my back pulling me even closer to him if that was possible. Why did this have to feel so right?

"Neither can I." He admitted, "It's because I can't get the thought out of my head that if you fall asleep next to me we'll technically be sleeping together."

"Haha, very funny."

"No, I mean it."He said, "It's really hard for me to just lay here knowing you're right there."

"You already said that." I told him.

"I know but, it really is hard." I felt one of his hands touch the side of my head before he started to gently play with a loose strand of my hair. I tilted my head up so I could look at his face. I could feel his steady breath a lot more forcefully now. The next thing I knew he had his hand at the bottom of my chin and we were looking each other in the eyes. He had slid himself down so our faces could be right next to each other. "Sorry."

I was a bit confused by what he had just said but had had no chance to reply. His face had drawn closer to mine and my heart rate started to rush like mad. I was shocked when I felt his lips brush mine gently. I gasped and he removed his lips immediately, afraid that I didn't want the kiss. I rested my forehead against his not wanting him to stop. He got the message and our noses touched first before his lips found mine again. I removed my hands from his stomach and wrapped them around his back trying to bring him closer to me. Our kiss started out slowly but gained more speed after neither of us were able to get enough of each other. We both lay in each others arms just completely emersed in the momemt... emersed in the warmth of his mouth against mine. I was completely aroused... and I could tell he was too. He pushed at my lips with his tongue before I opened my mouth slightly to let him in. His tongue felt so good against mine; pushing and pulling against each other. I rolled on top of him so my legs were straddling his. I grasped the back of his head and pushed him closer to me. We both moaned into each others mouths before _I _remembered that we shouldn't get carried away. I parted with him and lay my head against his chest. His kisses found the rest of my face and then my neck making me shiver.

"We should stop." I tried to say but, he didn't relent.

He growled a bit in response, surprising me. I sighed and let him keep going, truly not wanting to stop.

The bits of hair on his face from not shaving tickled as he nuzzled into my neck and I let out a small chuckle. He flipped us over so he was straddling me and kissed as far down as my shirt let him. He had my legs in his hands and he stroked them gently. I knew we had to stop when I let out a deep moan.

"Kevin!" I pushed myself off of him. "We need to stop."

He sat up and looked at me and for a moment I regretted stopping him but I knew that there was still so much we needed to talk about...

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AN: So I hoped you liked it. I can't believe it but I just looked at the date that I first started writing this and I realised that it's been over a year since I started. Time flies. Well finally some Kevin and Fia action! Wow! Kevin seemed to have gotten a little carried away. hehe what will Fia say? Well sorry I haven't updated in soooo long. Let me know if I have to push the rating higher but I don't think it was anything too explicit. Please REVIEW!! :)


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